


I Like You

by DialandyouShallReceive



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: "I like you", Awkward Conversations, F/M, Friendship, Opposites Attract, PWP, Sex, Smut, Work Romance, episode 5.08, how many references can i awkwardly shove into my fic?!, it began at the office, sneaking around HR, team bonding exercises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 38,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24176842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DialandyouShallReceive/pseuds/DialandyouShallReceive
Summary: Takes place after "I like you" happens in 5.08. I love these weird nerds.This is essentially what I would have loved to see happen post season 5 and didn't devolve into the weird, scattered season 6. This is just me playing with the endearing and weird character's in Mike Judge's world.Also, I've added in the hacker hostel, even though it's under Jian-Yang's domain in the fifth season. I love the persistence of that scrappy little house coated in tech nerd ephemera.
Relationships: Bertram Gilfoyle/Monica Hall, Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	1. Texts

**Author's Note:**

> First fic in a few years, utterly obsessed with this pairing. Will continue to update while I rewatch Silicon Valley again and am still in the middle of a pandemic.

“I like you.”

Monica’s neck cracked a little at the speed with which her head turned. Her eyes narrowed on Gilfoyle and he pointedly looked away from her face.

“Not in that—you understand what I’m saying.”

She nodded, but also… completely didn’t understand.

***

After the 51% defeat, a second party erupts, waves of erratic and frankly disturbing aggression (mostly from Holden) and Monica is starting to feel the past thirty-plus hours of no sleep weighing on her eyelids. She leaves without saying goodbye to anyone and leaves her car in the lot and grabs a Lyft to her condo.

It isn’t until she’s kicked off her shoes and yanked off her skirt and top to get into the shower that Gilfoyle’s words reenter her brain.

“I like you.”

Who the fuck says that? A sixth grader with game, sure, but not a thirty-something systems architect with an inverse cross tattoo, more plaid than a lumberjack, and a perpetually aggressive and morose attitude. She cranks on the water and steps under it, feeling the grime of the party, the six cigarettes, and the stress of Richard nearly falling prey to Gavin once again wash off her body, and she starts to think about the night before.

There had been quite a few glances last night. Gilfoyle had stared into her eyes at one point when both were fading, and Monica had stumbled slightly in her hurry to move quickly from the chair and desk to grab more coffee. That was why there was more eye contact than ever. The exhaustion, even though this is fairly typical for Gilfoyle’s code sprints.

In the shower, it becomes very clear how Gilfoyle’s eye shape and color are very striking and thoughtful. She wonders if his casual racism and callous attitude are more of a shield because there was something very vulnerable in his gaze at about 3:00am and she’s just suffering from exhaustion, right?

It’s Gilfoyle. Fucking Gilfoyle.

But the fact that he’d offered her the remainder of the Pappy Van Winkle and was willing to actually say something kind. Well, passably kind. “I like you” is very basic in terms of emotional literacy.

She brushes her teeth twice, plugs in her phone, and shoves on a gigantic Bream*Hall shirt and her most disintegrated cotton shorts and falls asleep in a sun-drenched bedroom.

When she wakes up ten hours later, it’s pitch black and her phone is buzzing. 4:03am. There are fourteen messages and counting and they’re all from Gilfoyle.

11:03: I’m at the hostel if you’d like to have a beer.

11:39: Our coin is still growing.

11:50: I’m guessing you’re asleep, but PiperCoin is at $3.78. Thought you should know.

12:30: fifiifiiiottototototoototototo

12:34: rouwureopwqriwruworuwqroiwqur

(the next four are also gibberish)

1:35: Dinesh walked into a doorway [string of indecipherable emojis including a rocket]

1:53: This is probably the Pappy I just drank talking but wanna go to Philz tomorrow?

3:30: PiperCoin is at $4.05.

3:33: Sorry, can’t sleep, still drunk.

3:46: I meant it.

4:00: I like you.

It could be the ten hours of uninterrupted sleep or the adrenaline of their coin spiking, but Monica is wide awake, excited, and irritated. Terse Gilfoyle is drunk and texting her. Repeatedly. And now she’s dialing his number.

“Did I wake you?” he says without any greeting.

“No. Yes. Maybe.”

“Definitive,” he says, and she’s pretty sure he’s smiling based on his smug tone.

“Have you slept at all?”

“I’m an expert napper. I’m essentially a housecat.” There’s a slightly creepy (and kinda sexy) laugh as what Monica is picturing as a drunk and exhausted Gilfoyle makes a very bad joke.

“Okay, I’m gonna come get you.”

“What?”

Monica smiles, because this monosyllabic answer is more Gilfoyle.

“Brush your teeth, grab a clean shirt, I’m going to come pick you up.”

She hangs up before he can protest. She puts on her garishly yellow Pied Piper jacket and grabs her keys, driving to Newell Road before she knows what she’s actually doing.

***

Gilfoyle looks around the party, but everyone is occupied. Jared is busy clearing cups off of desks and smiling like a proud parent, Dinesh is starting yet another karaoke disaster, and Richard is yelling something that sounds very similar to “kiss my piss,” and dancing, and Gilfoyle feels no need to touch that. Also, she’s left.

He just said “I like you” to Monica. What kind of a dumb asshole does that? Probably Dinesh, and even then, his best friend is admittedly becoming smoother with women. (Did he just think of Dinesh as his best friend? Is this where exhaustion and Pappy are leading?) He cringes inwardly, but also has to admit, that staying up all night was kind of… fun. It doesn’t hurt that Tara cut off their relationship for good two months ago. Oddly, he felt very little after that breakup, and he has the feeling that Tara was in the same boat.

He leaves the office party and gets into his car, swayed by highway hypnosis to the hostel, where he falls into bed for a couple hours of sleep.

Gilfoyle wakes up to the sound of terrible dubstep Skrillex remixes in the main room and when he wanders out, there are about 15 Pied Piper employees completely trashed and thrashing into each other. Dinesh sees him and yells:

“Gilfoyle! This fucking guy!”

A beer is shoved into his hand, and the look of pure joy on Dinesh’s face is actually pretty contagious. A small smile tugs at Gilfoyle’s mouth and the group around him starts to chant his name. It’s horrible and wonderful and he chugs the whole beer. One beer leads to shots which leads to more beer and Gilfoyle is drunk and tired and begins texting. He feels loose enough to text stuff about bitcoin, but he realizes after he sees each text pop up, none of them answered, how weird it is.

Because he’s just texted Monica twice.

Gilfoyle wakes up in the side room, having passed out playing a video game he can’t remember to the sound of Dinesh smacking his head into the doorjamb. He lifts his phone and sees that his face has been texting strings of gibberish to Monica.

That’s embarrassing. Well, he can’t stop thinking about her. No denying that, might as well go all in. Now he’s the guy who has feelings for someone else. And has just drunkenly texted her in the middle of the night.

Whatever. She already knows he likes her. He did a wholly shitty job of covering that blunder up, and he supposes that he meant it. No, he knows he meant it.

He passed out and then wakes up again and blearily wanders to the bathroom and hops into the shower after a drunken struggle with his pants. He doesn’t really wash so much as try to stay standing from exhaustion before running a towel over his face and body and reflexively checking the coin on his phone.

It’s gone up again.

So, he has a reason to text her again (even though he really doesn’t). So, he does.

But now he’s too awake and decides to go all in. Just as he’s about to fall asleep, she’s calling him and now she’s coming to get him.

He looks down at himself, suddenly self-conscious of what he should wear. He pulls out the one pair of sweatpants he owns and a black t-shirt. He picks up a gray plaid shirt from the chair on the end of his bed and wonders how long it will take for her to get here. Because, while no longer afraid of falling asleep, he’s worried that he’s going to drive himself insane waiting. He brushes his teeth more thoroughly than usual and brushes his hair, inwardly yelling at himself for being a high maintenance dick.

Gilfoyle moves to the living room, where five different employees are passed out in the front room, one of them under his desk.

A black Prius rolls into the driveway.

***

Monica doesn’t realize what she’s doing until Gilfoyle walks out of the front door wearing sweatpants and her heart starts pounding. He looks very different than he usually does, softer, his obviously exhausted stance and eyes as well as the sweatpants making her smile. It also looks like he’s tried brushing his hair. 

He plops into the passenger seat and doesn’t make eye contact.

“Hi,” she says softly.

“Hi.”

They pull out and Monica asks, “coffee?”

“Yes.”

She almost laughs: of course, he doesn’t say “please,” but for some reason, the dark sky turning slightly lighter and his sweatpants make her feel happy now that he’s here.

She pulls into Philz and grabs them both coffee.

A quiet “thank you,” when Gilfoyle clutches at the coffee causes her to fully smile. She makes eye contact with him.

“The answer is, yes, I would like to get coffee with you.”

Gilfoyle looks stunned.

“Do homemade waffles also work?”

He nods slowly.

Who is she? She doesn’t pick up random coworkers after investing in cryptocurrency and get coffee before 5am while driving back to her condo with the hopes of discussing… she’s not quite sure about that part yet, she just knows she’s ready for it.

***

Gilfoyle is trying not to look at Monica, because if he does, he’s going to combust. She looks radiant.

She’s had a smile on her face since she picked up and when he sat down in the car, he noticed how little she was wearing underneath her heinous gold letter jacket. He doesn’t just like her. She’s incredible. She’s smart, she says fuck as much as he does, she smokes in a brazen, sexy way, and she’s been in his life in some way for a few years now. How had he not noticed her until the night before?

Also, how and why is she so happy? Is she truly happy to be in his company? Why the fuck is she picking him up and offering to make him breakfast food?

They pull up to a modern building, and say nothing while Monica parks in the structure and walk the many flights up to her door. He knows if he says something, he’s going to probably blow it, because she looks gorgeous and he’s going to stammer our something like Richard would at a VC meeting. When they walk in, she gestures to a huge armchair near a fireplace (venture capitalists do well) and he sinks into it. She sits in the sofa across from him, a small smile still on her face.

“You like me.”

Gilfoyle is tempted to leave the condo and walk back to Newell Road.

“I like you, too, Gilfoyle.”

Oh. That was unexpected.

“Oh,” he hears himself say out loud.

“I know you said something about not that way, but I somehow don’t believe that.”

Oh, this is just perfect, thinks Gilfoyle, and crosses his arms over his chest. She can see right through him and she likes him, and this is just weird because it’s not even fully daylight and this is the first time he’s been in her living space. He continues to say nothing.

“So, I like you. I liked waking up to the many, many texts from you, and honestly, while I’m sure exhaustion has a big part to do with this, I’m feeling pretty fucking excited about our coin and I missed you when I got home.”

She says this all in a rush and he notices that her cheeks have gone a little pink, and she’s crossing her legs, perched high on the couch. Her shorts are very short and Gilfoyle feels a little lightheaded.

“I know you just said ‘I like you,’ but I want to spend more time with you.”

“How are you sure that what you’re feeling from me isn’t just adrenaline?”

“Because you’re sitting in my condo.”


	2. Waffles

Gilfoyle looks a little dumbstruck and for a few agonizing minutes, Monica is pretty certain that she’s misread the entire situation. He keeps making intense eye contact and breaking it for long stretches of time. It’s probably only about 30 seconds, but she’s definitely feeling like all is faltering.

“So, waffles?” she asks weakly.

Gilfoyle just nods in answer. He’s started to drum his fingers rhythmically on the arms of the soft chair, and she notices his very nice hands. She wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at those very well-shaped fingers. Is it possible for a guy to have sexy hands? His left index finger shines with his ever-present ring. She realizes this isn’t the first time she’s looked at his decidedly sexy hands.

She hurries to the kitchen, which is divided from the living room by a breakfast bar. As she’s scrounging in the cupboard, she notices that Gilfoyle’s eyes are following hers. He breaks eye contact again.

“Gilfoyle, are you nervous?” she asks, hopes that she’s not embarrassing the hell out of her long-standing… is he a friend?

“Yes,” he says simply, his deep voice quiet. “I really didn’t expect to end up in your condo, of all places.”

She pulls out milk, eggs, and buckwheat flour. Though extraordinarily busy at Raviga, Bream*Hall, and then Pied Piper, Monica has mastered the art of the 15-minute waffle. At least once a week, she treats herself to a lavish breakfast before work.

“I gotta be honest, I didn’t either,” she answers, “but I think we can have a good time.”

“Are you…” Gilfoyle trickles out.

“Am I what?”

“Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Hall?”

“First of all, it’s Ms.,” Monica smiles. “Second of all, it’s just breakfast if you want it to be.”

Gilfoyle is now smiling a little, and it’s pretty striking how much it changes its usually stoic face. She smiles even more, and ducks to grab a mixing bowl and find a whisk. When she stands up, Gilfoyle has moved, and is standing on the other side of the breakfast bar, looking at her.

“I’m okay with a lot,” he replies. “I can’t promise a lot of excitement, because Dinesh woke me up at 10:45. I might be hungover, and I’m definitely tired as fuck.”

“So, start with breakfast?” Monica says as she begins whisking the batter.

“Do you want some… help?” Gilfoyle asks, almost dubiously. “My expertise tends to fall in the realm of cereal and milk.”

“Okay, you can grab the waffle machine from over the dishwasher.”

Well, this is a first. Gilfoyle isn’t one to cook for himself, let alone with anyone else. Especially not gorgeous VC’s who still look incredible despite wearing a hideous yellow jacket. Which she is pulling off and throwing over the back of one of the breakfast bar’s chairs. Her shirt is falling over one shoulder and he’s pretty damn sure that she’s not wearing a bra.

She looks back at him and skips back into the kitchen, and he’s now the world’s largest creep for knowing she’s not wearing a bra by the jiggle under the gigantic Bream*Hall shirt. He’s ogling his coworker. His face heats.

Monica’s eyebrows knit together: “are you okay, Gilf?”

The nickname is usually a sore spot, but now it’s just familiar. His chest tightens and he feels a full-blown blush heating his cheeks and forehead. At least he has a fucking beard.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he answers. “Sorry.”

“No need,” and she begins whisking all the ingredients. He’s pretty sure that she’s not aware of how she’s humming to herself. “Okay, if you could heat up that iron and grab some butter for it from the fridge, we’ll be ready in no time at all.”

The next few minutes are a weird delight, watching Monica stir the batter and then perfectly pouring it into the waffle iron. Her face is perpetually smiling, and her fingers are nimble. She doesn’t spill any of the batter.

“Where’s your bathroom?” Gilfoyle asks, because a couple of minutes might be necessary. He’s also pretty sure he looks like shit.

“Down the hall to the left,” she answers. “The waffles will be ready when you’re back.”

Gilfoyle shuffles to the bathroom and just runs the sink, slapping water onto his face. He feels overwhelmed, dizzy, a little aroused, but mostly… happy. He looks up and stares into his eyes, steeling himself for breakfast. This really shouldn’t be a problem. At all. He’s had sex plenty of times, successfully entered into relationships with women far more beautiful than he ever thought possible. He’s not even being a sarcastic shit with Monica. But he’s completely off his game.

He takes a piss, washes his hands and splashes his face, and dries off his hands and face before taking a breath and wandering back down the hall.

There is a plate with a fucking waffle waiting for him. It hits him again: Monica Hall made him goddamn breakfast and the sun is just rising. They can see it rising through the window over the sink.

There are four seats at the breakfast bar, but they’re sitting at the corner, easily able to look at each other. Gilfoyle is honestly excited to eat a goddamn waffle. With strawberries (and is that whipped cream?) on top.

“Can I get you anything to drink? Water, milk, I’m pretty sure I could whip up a mimosa.”

“You know what, hair of the dog could really do it right now.”

“I haven’t had anything since that Pappy,” she says as she pulls out a bottle of champagne and some flutes, “I gotta say, Gilfoyle, that was a lot of fun. I normally can’t do more than past 3am, but I really like spending time with you.”

“Okay,” Gilfoyle answers weakly. “Thanks.”

“Okay, I’m going to ask you one more time: Gilfoyle, are you okay?”

“Yeah, for the most part,” he answers again. “Just a little… much.”

Well, that was articulate.

“Did I do anything?” Monica asks, and the look of worry on her face is endearing and embarrassed.

“No, not at all,” he answers, “it’s just not every day that my partying ends in homemade breakfast.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re always with the cereal and milk,” she says, smiling. “I have a soft spot for morning carbs.”

“That’s fair,” Gilfoyle says, and feels himself relaxing.

“Please start eating, I’ll be there in a minute,” she says, digging in the fridge for orange juice.

The waffle is fucking delightful. He wonders what she puts in them.

“Fuck,” he says aloud.

“Assuming that’s a positive ‘fuck,’ I’m glad you like it!”

“It’s possibly going to fuck over breakfast for me from now on. Cereal and milk are nothing compared to this.”

She’s now sitting next to him, and they’re clinking champagne flutes. He takes a sip, and is pretty sure that she put mango-orange juice in the mimosa, and goddamn, that’s delightful.

“If you’re still tired after this, you can feel free to crash here,” she says softly. “I know it was kind of impulsive to just pick you up, and I know that you didn’t sleep much, and I won’t be offended if you’re exhausted.”

“I think I’ll be okay,” he answers.

“I also want to be very honest,” she says. “I know that you mentioned an open relationship with Tara, but I don’t think that’s quite my speed. I’m still cool with just having breakfast, maybe doing stuff outside of work, but I do like you.”

“Well, Tara dropped me a couple of months ago,” Gilfoyle says, “and I clearly like you.”

“So…” Monica draws out, “what do you want to do?”

“I hope this isn’t really fucking rude,” Gilfoyle answers, “but this is weird.”

They stare at each other, Monica looking over a sip of her flute, and slowly puts it down.

“It is,” Monica says. “But I’m weirdly okay with it.”

Gilfoyle feels himself smile again. She’s still staring at him and he feels less awkward overall. Maybe it’s the champagne or waffles, but he feels a bit more normal and a lot bolder. He tentatively rests his hand on her bare thigh, sliding it softly back and forth. She nods slightly, and he leans his head towards her and presses his lips to hers.


	3. Naps

Monica is a little stunned. Gilfoyle is exceptionally good at this and his lips are unexpectedly soft. She feels the tickle of beard hairs as they begin their passionate yet lazy kiss. She slides off of her chair and stands next to Gilfoyle, melting into him.

His hands gently grab her waist, pulling her closer as he begins to stand. A fire sparks behind her stomach and she throws her arms around him, circling his neck, pulling him closer. She can feel his heart beating as fast as the pulse in her ears, and she is tugging him over to the sofa.

They break apart so Monica can drag him to horizontal, but he stops them. He takes a big shuddering breath.

“Are you sure?” Gilfoyle asks, staring right at her. He’s still holding her hand.

“Definitely,” she answers, wondering if pulling off her shirt would kill him right now. His eyes are so bright and a little wide in surprise. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he says, but still stands still. “But I’m pretty fucking tired and the room might be spinning.”

“Then take a nap. You want my bed?”

“I could just go home…”

“But… you’re here. And I’m not doing anything today, please stay. Again, if that’s not fucking weird.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Just nap for however long you need. I’ll be here just watching something shitty on TV. My bedroom’s across from the bathroom.”

She watches him wander down the hall and stumble into the bathroom. Monica goes back to the breakfast bar and voraciously finishes the rest of the waffles.

So, she got Gilfoyle into bed easily. For the weirdest reason. It’s time to watch something horrifically saccharine or filled with sycophantic horrible people and zone out while Gilfoyle rests. But… should she check on him? Is that even weirder?

She tiptoes down the hallway and she can see through the crack of the door that Gilfoyle is fast asleep. His arms are wrapped around a pillow and his mouth is open and she’s fairly certain he’s snoring lightly. He seems okay and she smiles to herself as she tiptoes back to the TV.

Monica flips channels and ends up on some early episodes of Cheers in the middle of a marathon. She feels herself drifting after a couple of episodes, slowly dipping into the couch, until her eyes are drooping. She manages to grab the fleece throw over the back of the couch before she falls completely asleep.

***

Gilfoyle wakes up to the brightest sunshine ever in a puddle of drool right on the softest pillow in the entire world. He freaks out a little bit: where in the ever-loving hell is he? This bed is covered in a thread count of sheet that he’s never felt and he’s still wearing socks.

Oh. He fell asleep at Monica’s in her bed. He digs out his phone from his sweatpants and sees it’s 2:30pm. Well, fuck. He successfully kissed Monica and then proceeded to sleep for hours. This is probably the last time that he’s going to be here, because this is the strangest and most uncomfortable situation ever. Because he stopped a sensual moment with the sexiest woman he’s ever met.

He wanders down the hallway and sees some sitcom playing on the TV and a sleeping Monica draped over the sofa. She’s murmuring in her sleep, and he’s pretty sure she’s just said, “Pied Piper” and he smiles.

The dishes are still out, so he decides to at least make her afternoon less shitty and weird by washing them. He gathers everything and begins washing and peeks every once in a while, to make sure Monica’s still asleep.

Dishes are done and he has no idea what to do. If he sits in the chair, that’s creepy. If he goes back to the bedroom: also creepy. He bites the bullet and decides to wake her.

He gently pats her shoulder and watches as she opens her eyes, looking confused. Her eyes are gorgeous, and her hair is mussed in a sexy way.

“Oh my god, I fell asleep. I’m sorry, Gilf, this is such a bust of a day.”

“I don’t have anything going on,” he says and gulps, “and I like being here with you. Thanks for letting me nap.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

There’s a lot of staring. There has been too much staring all day, but now they’re both awake, and—

“Do you want to just talk?” Monica asks him.

“Sure.”

And they do. It’s uncomfortable at first, probably because there’s no computer in front of them, but they just start. Monica shuts off the tv and they start talking about food and alcohol, and move into where they’re from, where they’ve visited, and even start right in on family. Gilfoyle talks about growing up in Ontario and how cold the winters could be and finds out that Monica is from Maryland and still visits each year for Christmas. They eventually get up and move to the kitchen where Monica makes some coffee.

“Sorry, no ‘Hail Satan’ mugs in here,” she says in a deadpan tone.

He should feel a little cornered, but she says it without any judgement. She’s honestly pretty fucking funny. They begin to discuss religion and Gilfoyle gets into the depths of Anton LaVey and how Satanism isn’t what the mainstream media portrays it to be. She asks some probing questions and then they’re talking about his jokes at Dinesh’s expense. Now he feels a little upset about how vulnerable she’s going to make him be, but he carries on, explaining how he is an equal opportunity offender and how he and Dinesh are actually close.

“So, Dinesh is okay with what you say to him?”

“No. But he also says horrible shit to me.”

“How are you two best friends?”

It would be easy to deny it, to slam his fellow coder, but it’s Monica. He’s in her home, so he’ll go for it.

“We just are. We were at Erlich’s for over six months each by the time Pied Piper started getting any traction. We were competitive and started just roasting each other more and more aggressively. I guess we’ve never stopped. It’s a kind of shorthand now. Dinesh drives me nuts, because he’s a damn good engineer, and… I guess I’m a little intimidated by his skills. If you tell him that, I will never speak to you again.”

Monica’s looking at him and he can’t read her expression.

“Look, his attitude is untenable, his obsession with finding a girlfriend is tedious, but he’s talented and I don’t know if I’d be able to do such good work without him.”

Now Monica’s smiling.

“So you’re a really good friend who overcompensates by drenching it in politically incorrect insults and hostility?”

“I mean, sure, but you’re oversimplifying it a little bit.”

They continue talking, again at the breakfast bar, sipping from their coffee mugs and (his, black, hers, more creamer than he’s ever ingested in the entirety of his life) and discussing how shitty Palo Alto can be, but also how they really don’t want to live anywhere else. He talks about Boston, and how he did enjoy living there for a few months, part of the time with Tara.

“If this is too forward, you don’t have to answer, but how long were you with Tara?”

“We started dating about six years ago and were open the entire time. The last couple of years have been pretty spotty, though, because of Pied Piper and her job picking up. She also started seeing one of her few Boston guys and they’re now monogamous. It’s a little jarring to hear about that.”

“Do you miss her?”

“No, we’re still in contact, we just kept it shorter. And—”

Should he tell her?

“And?” she prompts.

“And I’d started talking about you a lot, and I guess she kind of filled in the rest. Tara is still a friend, but she cut things off with me because I kept talking about work and specifically you. She split up because she saw I wasn’t as interested in her.”

Monica looks a little stunned.

“Yeah, she’s pretty intuitive. Always has been.”

Monica chooses this moment to grab him by the shoulders and slam her mouth into his.


	4. Lips

Gilfoyle responds in kind and pulls Monica as close as he can. His hands are around her waist and hers have drifted upwards, one around the back of his neck, the other hand sliding into his hair. They’re both a little ravenous, and she can feel his teeth on his lower lip. Fuck, that feels really good.

When they take a breath, it’s not for long, but Monica starts pulling at his shirt already. He’s happy to oblige and yanks it over his head. She runs his hands over his chest and down his stomach, and he shivers before pulling her back towards him for another kiss.

They’ve drifted back to the sofa, and she leans backwards and pulls him on top of her. Oh, this feels fucking perfect. The kisses become lazy and sweet, but they’re both about a million degrees. She feels her shift and sits up, and she stares at him with what can only be described as an evil smile, before taking off her shirt.

He was right. No bra.

Monica has lots of freckles on her chest and absolutely perfect breasts. They’re small and he leans down to kiss them, sucking slightly on a nipple. The keening sound she makes vibrates in his dick and she is even better than he imagined. He feels her grasping his hair, and her voice saying something that sounds a lot like “please.”

Gilfoyle lifts his head and makes eye contact. Monica responds by lifting her hips and beginning to pull down her shorts. It’s on.

“Do you want me…?” he asks, and Monica is nodding frantically. He pulls her shorts off and takes a huge gulp of air. (He truly hopes he doesn’t sound like Richard right now.) He has to steady his breathing because looking at Monica completely naked before him, looking at him like she’s the lucky one, is going to kill him.

***

Monica has never seen Gilfoyle lose his cool before, not on this level. He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling, and he looks so wild, especially behind his eyes. She wonders briefly if next time she can get him to tie his hair back so she can see his eyes a little better.

Gilfoyle then moves down, slowly laving his tongue over her, immediately feeling sparks shoot down to her toes. He’s really, really good at everything so far, but she feels like he’s really good at oral sex. He’s alternating fast and slow strokes, little jabs and long licks, and---

“Fuck!” she yells as he begins to focus all his attention on her clitoris. He growls slightly and it goes straight through her and the fastest orgasm causes her limbs to shake. She sees stars and pulls at Gilfoyle’s head, holding him right where she needs.

When she finally feels like her breathing has returned to normal, she opens her eyes and sees Gilfoyle looking at her, with a wolfish smile on his face.

“How are you?” he asks in the most maddening way. If not for the lingering euphoria, she would be so fucking peeved with that look and that tone.

“I don’t know how you know how to do that so well, but I’m not mad.”

“I enjoy enticing the flesh.”

Monica snorts and starts giggling.

“Did you honestly just use the word ‘entice’?”

“Yeah, and?” he says, crossing his arms over his (surprisingly built) chest.

Monica is full out laughing now because she hasn’t felt this happy or relaxed in a long damn time. Gilfoyle looks at her and his smile cracks wide and he starts to laugh, too. They’re sitting on the couch in various stages of undress and cracking up at the word ‘entice’ and Monica feels her heart fill with something as she watches the most stoic man she’s ever known laugh his ass off.

***

Well, this is a first for Gilfoyle. Sex is normally followed by a cigarette, maybe some TV, but never raucous laughter. Especially not after cunnilingus. Gilfoyle has always enjoyed getting primal during sex and Monica triggered that in him. With his pants still on.

Now, watching her and laughing like a fool, he knows that he wants to keep going and continue their sex, but would also be okay with just this. He really, really likes her now, unabashed and shaking with laughter. She’s so removed from being self-conscious that she’s even more beautiful than she normally is. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s naked and relaxed.

“Come on,” she says, standing up and leading him down the hallway.

Following naked Monica down the hallway to her bedroom is the best thing that’s happened since bitcoin.

“Hold on,” he says, and he can’t believe he’s doing this twice in one day. “Our coin.”

She turns, and leans into his shoulder, as he pulls out his phone.

$4.66

“Yes!” Monica cheers and grabs him for another kiss before grabbing his hand and dragging him into the bedroom. She perches on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, and staring at him with a wild look in her eyes. “Want to celebrate again?”

He walks over in three steps. She reaches for his waistband and pulls down. He steps out of pants and boxers and stands.

“Condom?” he asks.

“Drawer,” she breathes.

Monica pushes him back this time and straddles his legs. When she sinks on top of him, he lets loose a low moan that she echoes and it isn’t long until they’re in a heap of sweat and breath.

***

When Monica wakes up again, she’s pressed in tight to Gilfoyle’s side and it’s completely dark out. She moves, hoping not to stir him, but she realizes that he’s probably already awake.

“You hungry?”

“Actually, very.”

They order a pizza and sit in matching robes from Monica’s closet to eat it in bed.

“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this,” prefaces Gilfoyle, “but you’re not the first person I’ve worn matching pajamas with.”

“Ha, you and Dinesh had a buddy weekend?”

His wide-eyed look is something she could get used to seeing every day.

“Wait, really?”

“Okay, again, you can’t tell anyone that I’ve told you this. Remember Kenan Feldspar?”

“You matched with Kenan fucking Feldspar?” Monica laughs.

“No. It was Dinesh. We got sucked into the vortex and ended up staying at Kenan’s for a weekend. There was the VR barmaid, heated floors, and fresh kegs of beer. It was the middle of that fucked up cold snap, and Dinesh and I ended up staying and integrating the algorithm into the VR platform. We didn’t want to keep wearing our same clothes, so Kenan loaned us some pretty comfortable silk pajamas. Richard and Jared looked very worried when they came to get us.”

She honestly wishes she could have seen them and tells him.

“Gotta say, this is more fun,” he tells her with a small smile. “Just let me know when I’ve gotta go.”

“I’m not done with you yet.”


	5. Robes

Being a Saturday, Monica and Gilfoyle stay up and continue talking. Monica puts on a pot of coffee and spikes it with some Jack.

“I know it’s not Pappy, but Pappy deserves to be served neat,” she explains, her robe’s sash barely staying tied around her waist.

As she moves around the kitchen, grabbing mugs and pouring the beverages, Gilfoyle tries not eyeing too closely. She doesn’t deserve his ogling.

They’ve been talking for a couple of hours and they’ve gotten very deep, not to be overwrought or emotional. They’ve also been funny and Monica seems to be comfortable enough around him that her cleavage is more prominent as she moves her arms around to discuss Peter Gregory and men she’s dated in the past. She mentions something about her marriage and subsequent annulment, but he doesn’t press her on any of the details. He especially doesn’t want to open a minefield of religion, since he gets the feeling that she’s probably still fairly Catholic.

He was Catholic, but that’s a whole other story. He doesn’t think now’s the time to launch into that.

Monica brings over the coffee and leans low, her robe opening and he’s pretty sure it’s on purpose. He takes a big, hot gulp of the coffee and takes a breath. Monica sits next to him on the couch and leans over to kiss his neck.

“Definitely better than my prior weekend plans,” he deadpans.

Monica giggles, “what were they?”

“The usual. Ordering a pizza. Coding. Messing with Dinesh. Last weekend I managed to rewrite a line of his code so it kept sending him spam to his inbox. Nothing harmful, just funny when his computer would freeze.”

“Does every weekend involve the guys?”

“The hostel is still home. So, unfortunately for me, yes.”

“Sounds like you enjoy being around Dinesh a lot.”

“I can’t say that I do.”

“This is the third time you’ve brought him up today.”

“Fuck.”

Monica smiles at him before leaning into him for a deep kiss.

“Want to watch something?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah. I still got it,” he deadpans, again.

“Just curious.”

“I’m fairly okay with the current situation.”

Monica is climbing into his lap, and he’s never been happier to be wearing a matching robe to a woman. They’re sliding against each other in a very slow and sensuous rhythm that’s building quickly into an inferno. They have sex with Monica pushing him into the couch and he is almost ashamed and how short it lasts, but she comes first, so it’s not the end of the world.

This time, the sash is tied even more loosely, and he wonders why she even bothers wearing it.

“How is it only 10:30?” she asks. “I guess it’s been a while for me, but I don’t normally have sex three times in less than eight hours.”

Gilfoyle smiles at that. She sounds exhausted, but happy.

“Oh, fuck,” she says suddenly.

He sits up abruptly.

“Jared is going to find out just by looking at us, isn’t he?”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

“It’s Jared, though,” she says, “who one time guessed the exact start date of my period based on context clues.”

“Do I want to know anymore?”

“I don’t think so.”

He’s starting to worry and asks, “are we going to keep this hidden, or are we filling out one of those egregious and intrusive forms from HR?”

Monica looks dumbstruck. Still sexy beyond the depths of his internet searches, but his worry is nowhere near alleviated.

***

When Monica woke up two days ago, she sure as hell wasn’t worried about much beyond PiperCoin and the validity of her company’s mission. She was a little worried about Richard’s mood swings and his choices thereafter, the fact that she hadn’t gone to the doctor in over two years, and how she hadn’t had sex in about a year.

Now she’s made up for lost time on the sex front and is discussing the prudence of getting into a relationship with the most contrary systems architect she’s ever met.

“Oh,” is all she ekes out and the night becomes awkward for the first time since they’ve started.

Now Gilfoyle can’t meet her eyes and fidgets with the robe sash and she’s again staring at his beautiful hands.

“I’m not saying that we have to,” he says while staring at his hands. “The embarrassment you feel doesn’t have to go beyond this night.”

He stands up quickly and stalks off to the bedroom.

“Gilfoyle, stop!” she says as he’s quickly picking up clothes and trying to throw them on as fast as possible. He’s stoic as he slips past her.

“Don’t worry, I can call my own rideshare.”

“Gilfoyle, please, I was just surprised.”

“Surprised that we fucked, or surprised about the HR form?”

She stops, and feels her breath catch in her throat. He’s just wearing his sweatpants and he’s breathing heavily. The tone, the fiery look in his eyes, and the fact that he’s snapping his shirt lightly against his thigh.

“It’s not that at all, I’m just surprised that you’d be willing to do that—”

“Why?”

“This is just the first night that we’ve been together and you’re already willing to go this far?”

“Yes,” he snaps, starting to walk towards her slowly, stalking her. She feels like prey. “Monica, I say what I mean. I’m an asshole, I live my life in front of a screen, and I drink more in one day than you do in a week. I tend to be unpleasant, judgmental, and dedicated only to my job. Still, I like you.”

His voice rasps at the last sentence, like it’s a primal urge more than actual speech. He’s backed her against the wall, one hand braced on the wall by her ear, the other still clutching his shirt.

“I don’t need this to be one night, Monica. But if it’s not what you want, tell me fucking now.”

Monica knows how well Gilfoyle is at the world of the physical, but his eyes are primed on her like he would eat her if given the chance. She slowly loosens her robe and lets it drop down her body leaning towards him to let it pool on the floor.

She leans into his mouth and matches his tone. “Don’t fucking go.”

And then he’s on her, lifting her against the wall and kissing, sucking, lightly biting at every part of her neck and shoulders. This feels different than before, like instead of just wanting to do this, they _need_ to do this.

“Stay here,” he commands.

He wanders over to the bedside table and digs out a condom and eats up the space between them. Monica decides it’s her turn and takes control. She makes quick work of his pants and puts the condom on him before he lifts her again and sinks into her in a fluid motion that has them both moaning loudly.

Monica knows she’ll be sore and looks forward to feeling the hollow ache of Gilfoyle having been inside her because right now is amazing. She comes so quickly with one of Gilfoyle’s hand on a breast and the other pulling her hair. He follows with a grunt and a murmured “fuck.”

Monica wanders over to the bathroom and takes a moment and when she walks back to her room, she finds Gilfoyle wearing his sweatpants, again. He’s lying on the bed and has a fist resting on his forehead, staring at the overhead lamp.

He looks up when she enters, and Monica sees a quieter version of the fire behind his eyes.

“That didn’t answer my question,” he intones.

For the second time that night, Monica is blown over by uncontrollable laughter. Gilfoyle looks upset at first, but she sees the smile tug at his lips, and soon he’s laughing deeply. The HR form will be dealt with later.


	6. Plans

Gilfoyle wakes to bright sunlight in the softest bed he’s ever spent a night in. He reaches for his glasses and his phone, which Monica was kind enough to charge last night. There are more than a few Dinesh queries and selfies, a long text from Jared which looks to be flowery and endearing from the few adjectives he sees, and no less than six work-related emails from Richard. None of them are pressing, but he takes the time to raft a perfect retort to a woman licking Dinesh’s cheek time stamped at 3:36am at some shitty bar. He ignores the question about where Gilfoyle’s been since Saturday morning. It’s 10:30 now.

The door opens to Monica in a towel and her wet hair slicked back from her face. He openly stares at her and wonders if they’ll have sex yet again. He remembers waking up as the sun was rising, feeling Monica pulled taut against him and nuzzling his neck in her sleep. When he moved, more due to discomfort than anything, she’d woken and the next thing he knew, they were practically clawing at each other’s already minimal clothing.

He’s already naked now.

Monica is oddly shy this morning, surreptitiously putting on clothes and covering her body quickly.

“I hate to burst your modesty bubble, but I’ve seen literally all of you.”

Monica is also gorgeous when blushing. She smiles a little bit and looks up at him.

“It’s different when you’re just lying there staring at me while I’m getting dressed.”

“You technically don’t have to get dressed.”

“I was kind of looking forward to it since I’ve been mostly naked since Friday afternoon.”

“You’ve got me at a disadvantage, then. I just have clothes I’ve been wearing off and on for the past twenty-four hours.”

“Not like you slept in them,” Monica says and winks. She fucking winks at him and he feels himself getting hard.

“Do you have any plans for the rest of Sunday and Monday?” she asks him.

“No. I was just going to get coffee and maybe dick around with video games. Maybe grab some food.”

“Are you okay with maybe spending some time around here? Today and tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he says without any hesitation. “As long as there’s coffee and video games.”

“I’ve got coffee, but not so much video games.”

“I think I can handle that. Wait, did you say Monday?”

“Yeah, Richard wrote an email that we’re going to take a long weekend.”

“Are you sure you want me around here for the next two days?”

“Yes. I just need to grab some stuff from the hostel.”

She wanders over to the bed, just in her underwear, and gives him a kiss, before leaning to his ear and stage whispering, “we just need to talk about that HR form first.”

Oh, fuck, Gilfoyle instantly bristles.

“First, coffee.”

They’re sitting in t-shirts and underwear in the living room over mugs of coffee (this time Monica is drinking it black, and something about that is really hot). They just stare at each other for a little while.

“I don’t know exactly what you want, Gilf,” she says, her voice quiet. “I think we’re a little on the early side of all of this for a form, but I can definitely see a few paths.”

“Such as?” he intones.

“Okay,” she starts, “One – we disclose within a week. Two – we cut this off now and don’t need to disclose. Three – we see what happens and check back in a month. In the first and third shots, we’re going to need to do something far less pleasant than sex.”

“Which would be?”

“Telling the chief leadership. Richard, Jared, and Din—”

“Fuck.”

“Do you really have that much of a problem telling Dinesh?”

“Not so much. He’s going to be very jealous which I greatly relish. Even Richard will figure it out and get wrapped up in his own head.”

“Ah, yes,” she nods, understanding. “Jared.”

“Jared fucking Dunn is going to cry and hug and possibly plan our future life for us.”

Monica closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “I hadn’t fully thought out… this.”

“While I’m willing to continue any possible relationship with you, Monica, I just think that we should consider all of the possibilities.”

“You are,” she smiles. “I am, too.”

“So, I take it we’re going with option three?”

“Option three sounds good.”

They finish coffee and Monica gets dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Gilfoyle realizes he’s never seen her anything outside of her office clothes. She looks fantastic. He pulls on his two-day old clothes and they begin walking to the car.

***

Monica’s having the best weekend that she’s had in months. The closest she got to getting laid recently was two months ago when she went on an ill-advised clubbing night out with a few of her old friends from Raviga. She had ended up making out like a teenager with a guy named Pete who worked in insurance and kissed like he was looking for something in her mouth. He became easily irritated when Monica showed no interest in going home with him.

She and Gilfoyle peel out of her car in an easy silence before she feels an urgent need to ask an awkward question.

“Do I need to park kind of far from the hacker hostel? Since we’re kind of laying low right now.”

“Oh, shit,” Gilfoyle answers, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“I can drop you off and then you can pretend you’re getting an Uber somewhere?”

“Sure. Unless you just want to drop me off.”

“No, Gilfoyle,” she says firmly. “I’ve been thinking about what to do with you for a couple hours now.”

“Should I be fearful of my life?”

“Not telling,” she says, quickly turning and raising her eyebrows at him.

They turn onto Newell Road, and Monica parks a few car lengths away. Gilfoyle slinks out, with a word and she watches him walk quickly down to the house.

She flips through her phone and decides to answer a long, meticulously sweet and poetic text from Jared. He’s underlined how much he loves her work in Pied Piper and her honesty, her grace in the face of danger (oh, boy), and how he can’t imagine the team without her. There’s also a question she hadn’t seen earlier when scanning her phone. Jared’s organizing a night out for the Fab Five (she smiles and rolls her eyes at this) to go clubbing that night. He must be in on the Monday off plan with Richard. She thanks Jared and thinks she’ll ask Gilfoyle first before answering the question.

***

Gilfoyle opens the front door and sees a couple of the same Pied Piper guys as before, over twenty-four hours ago. The hostel is a goddamn black hole where everyone gets sucked in for hours at a time. Fortunately, no Dinesh, because he’d ask too many questions.

He loads up a bag of clothes, his laptop, toiletries, and a six-pack of beer. He thinks about it and carefully wanders into the kitchen and grabs corn flakes and Special K. Fortunately, Monica has whiskey, but beer and cereal are some of his essentials. He turns around and smacks into Dinesh.

“Where the hell have you been?” Dinesh asks with a weird look on his face.

“Out.”

“Where are you going, Gilfoyle? Did you take my Pop-Tarts.”

“Doesn’t concern you and no.”

“Are you going to the party tonight? I’m thinking about it, but it’s a Jared party, so that could be a fucking nightmare with confetti and bullshit—”

“Wait, a party?”

“You didn’t see the email? You’re always on your phone.”

“What fucking party?”

“Jared’s doing it for the top five of us, you know, to celebrate Richard and the coin and whatever. He’s taking us to a nightclub, but he describes it as a ‘rad discotheque’ and it’s tonight.”

“I don’t know.”

“Gotta check with your lady?”

Gilfoyle’s head snaps up and he tries to not freak out, Dinesh couldn’t possibly know.

“I knew it,” Dinesh says and points in his face, “you were with some lady! Does Tara know?”

“None of your fucking business,” Gilfoyle says and smacks down his finger.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“Doesn’t matter. See you later.”

Gilfoyle heads out the door and checks to make sure Gilfoyle isn’t following him.

When he gets back to the car, Monica is looking up at him.

“So, are we going to this party?”


	7. Dancing

Though Gilfoyle would rather use a cheese grater on his bare hands and crawl through the desert, Monica has talked him into begrudgingly going to the party. The last few hours have been domestic and fun all at once. They got take out tacos for lunch, took showers (she has a rainfall showerhead which he’d once thought douchey but now knows is the shit), surfed channels, ordered more tacos for dinner because they’re that fucking good, and Monica had successfully argued for going to the party based on the fact that she’d be wearing a cocktail dress. His base needs are being met and this is what’s going to get him through the night.

“What are you going to wear?” she asks.

“This,” he says, lifting his arms and looking down at his gray baseball tee, open red plaid shirt, black jeans, and black shoes.

“I like it,” she says, and he actually believes her. “Our styles are pretty different, Gilf.”

She starts getting ready while Gilfoyle messes around with a tricky piece of code on his laptop. He watches her volley between bathroom and bedroom, hearing the sounds of a hair dryer and watching as she switches from towel to underwear and then a full-blown face of makeup. When she’s finally done, she’s wearing a dark grey dress made out of some variety of shiny material. The neckline plunges low and her hips swing with each step on her tall heels.

“Well, fuck,” Gilfoyle says.

“Is this a good reaction?”

“Hell, yes. You’re going to show the rest of the guys up.”

“Oh, shit,” she says, her eyes lighting up, “how are we going to prove we didn’t arrive together?”

“I’m guessing we’re going to have to park far away, so I don’t think it will be an issue.”

“I think you’re right,” she breathes and shrugs. “Works for me.”

Monica grabs a bag that perfectly matches her dress and shoes and leads the way to the car. Gilfoyle feels mildly creepy thinking how she looks even better from the back. His stomach tightens and he’s pretty sure that it’s not the tacos.

“You now get to see my amazing skill of driving in heels in action,” she says as they get into the car.

“I don’t know how the fuck you walk in those,” Gilfoyle says as they drive towards the club. “I wouldn’t say I envy you.”

“I feel powerful in them. I’ve successfully driven and even run in heels before.”

“Consider me appropriately cowed by your prowess.”

“Are you joking or…?”

“Not joking,” Gilfoyle says softly, “I admire your skills.”

Monica smiles and finds a parking spot on a side street. They get out of the car and Gilfoyle reflexively reaches for Monica’s hand. She looks surprised and he remembers that this is still just day two of ‘I like you’ in action and feels a little stupid. He’s always enjoyed being close with his other girlfriends and remembers that that’s not Monica. Not yet, at least.

Fortunately, Monica is smiling.

***

For all of his posturing, Monica can see through the bluster. She likes that he wants to hold her hand.

“I think we should talk to the guys first,” she says gently, “and not tonight. Let’s just cut loose with them.”

“Ah, yes, cutting loose with Dick. My favorite.”

Monica snorts at the nickname and digs out her phone. She pulls up her contact list and scrolls down to their boss’s name and shows it to Gilfoyle.

“Bitchard. I like it.”

They reach a long line of people outside of a giant warehouse.

“Oh, good,” Gilfoyle deadpans. “A huge crowd of douchey people and we get to dance with them.”

“We’ll have some drinks, we’ll hang out with the guys, and it’ll be fun.”

A chirpy voice and a waving hand catch their attention. The face of Jared is smiling and about halfway up the line. He’s gesturing wildly at them to go and line up with him. He’s wearing a shiny shirt which she notices matches his eyes nicely.

“It begins,” Gilfoyle says in a deep voice.

Monica snorts, again, and they go line up with Jared.

“I know it’s only been two days, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you both,” Jared starts giddily, “We get to laud our dearest Richard and also shake our groove things and Monica you look divine. Gilfoyle, you look relaxed, I daresay. This is fantastic. I can’t wait to have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or maybe a mojito and dance with you both. Could I hug you both?”

“Yes,” answers Monica.

“No,” answers Gilfoyle.

Jared gives Monica an awkward but deeply caring bear hug and then leans over and squeezes Gilfoyle’s upper arm while Gilfoyle glares at him, but nods like it’s not the end of the world.

***

Jared keeps babbling for the next fifteen minutes it takes for them to move up the line, and the remainder of the group meets up with them. Richard is sporting his usual wear but has tucked is oversized button-up into his pants, and Dinesh is wearing a suit jacket without a tie and has put some product in his hair. Not as bad as the Bloomberg interview, and Gilfoyle has to admit he does look like a tech leader. He hates that he thinks that. Really hates that.

He also notices that Richard and Jared keep giving each other looks and are smiling. He wonders how much of a turn the Pied Piper celebrations took on Friday. If he and Monica have now become something like a couple, he finds he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Dick and Jared have gone down that road as well.

When they get to the door, the large man who passes for a bouncer makes a meal of rolling his eyes at the four men, until Monica comes to the front of their cluster. He starts actually rubbing his hands together, and Gilfoyle would like to sac tap him.

They enter the building, and Jared leads them through a very poorly lit hallway throbbing with deep bass. That permeating sound is honestly soothing, especially since it drowns out Jared’s buoyant chatter to a degree.

When they finally get to the end of the hall, there’s a rope and a separate area. It’s a little quieter back here, and he can now hear Jared. He’s actually tearing up with true emotion causing his voice to waver. A cocktail waitress arrives with a tray loaded with five champagne flutes and an oversized bottle. Jared pops the cork to the irritation of the waitress pouring and passing the flutes.

“To Pied Piper and the best friends I’ve ever had.”

The five of them lift their glasses, and Gilfoyle notices Monica slam her glass back and then stare at him for a beat before looking at the five of them.

“To the dance floor?” she asks.

“One more drink, first,” says Dinesh, grabbing the bottle and pouring it sloppily over each of their flutes.

Dinesh says something about finding a woman with his sick new moves, Richard nods and begins his awkward shuffle, and Jared is already careening like an idiot towards the gyrating masses. Gilfoyle makes direct eye contact with Monica before pouring and slamming another flute of champagne and wandering out to the floor.

Now the five of them are on the floor and something bubbly and loud is playing over the very loudspeakers. Jared has thrown his arms over the whole group and is wobbling them back and forth. The saving grace is that Monica is standing next to him and he keeps bumping into her. She slides her arm around his waist and Dinesh’s arm is around his shoulders and the bubbly must be working because he feels a smile starting.

Jared releases them and starts dancing in a way that looks fairly human. Richard, by contrast, is trying to make sure his arms don’t flail into the bodies close to him, but his smile is still trained on Jared’s face. Dinesh is laughing and holds out a hand to Monica, who mock-coyly grasps it while he twirls her. The two of them are smiling and dancing and Gilfoyle doesn’t like this one bit. For a moment, he thinks the two of them look like a real couple, and his rage nearly rises, until Monica dips him and they break into tipsy laughter. Dinesh holds out his hand to do the same with Gilfoyle and Gilf just glares, causing Dinesh and Monica to laugh harder.

When they turn around, Gilfoyle notices Jared and Richard have drifting further into the crowd. They’re staring at each other and dancing and then they all witness Jared lean down and kiss Richard passionately and Richard respond eagerly. They’re now grasping at each other and Gilfoyle feels his mouth actually drop open. Monica grabs his arm and stares between him and Dinesh, and the three of them keep staring at each other and the CEO and COO of Pied Piper publicly making out like teenagers on the dance floor.

Dinesh and Monica begin clapping and Monica jumps (a feat in her sexy get-up), and Gilfoyle smiles. What a delightful shitshow their company is going to become.

***

Monica keeps cheering whenever Richard and Jared walk past them. They’re now holding hands openly and smiling at each other. The five of them keep mostly in a group for a good hour and through a couple more rounds of drinks and she’s happy to see Gilfoyle loosening up. He’s even moving his body a bit to the beat.

The group splits when Richard and Jared go to their room and begin to make out in earnest on one of the velvet couches of their private VIP section and Dinesh catches the attention of a beautiful woman in a dress that makes Monica’s look feel conservative. They begin dancing in another corner of the dance floor.

So now it’s just the two of them, Monica and Gilfoyle, in the center of a sweaty, throbbing crowd of dancing people. They keep looking at each other and smiling, until Gilfoyle leans over to her and loudly whispers, “wait here.”

He shuffles fluidly through the throng towards the bar. He is out of sight for literally ten seconds when Russ fucking Hanneman shows up. He holds out his arms for a hug and she begrudgingly leans her shoulders in to take the bulk of it.

“Monica,” he shouts, “you look very hot!”

“Thank you,” she says and nods, looking towards where she last saw Gilfoyle and hopes his glares bring faster bar service. Russ is beginning to dance very close to her.

“Want to come to my private room? It’s on the second floor.”

“No, I’m already here with my group.”

“Doll, I’ve got all kinds of alcohol, Cristal, Veuve Cliquot, Tres Comas, all of that shit. Does your group have that?”

“Yeah, we’ve got champagne and folks, I’m good thanks.”

Gilfoyle has just arrived back with two glasses of what looks like whiskey neat and she’s never been happier to see a person.

“This fucking guy! You’re here with this guy? I love this crazy fucker!”

Russ leans over and gives Gilfoyle a half-hug but thankfully says his goodbyes and gives an awkwardly charismatic kiss to her hand and disappears, hopefully for the rest of the night.

“Sorry,” Gilfoyle says, leaning into her ear, “that douchelord always shows up at the worst fucking times.”

They clink glasses and Monica gives what she hopes is a seductive look over her whiskey, and Gilfoyle stares back at her.

***

Gilfoyle noticed that Jared and Richard were still wrapped up in each other on his way to the bar. He also passed Dinesh who seems to be making decent headway with a woman in a tiny red cocktail dress. He was incensed to see Russ dancing so close to Monica when he walked up with the drinks. When he got closer, he could tell that Monica would have kneed Russ in the balls if she needed to, if the fire in her eyes was anything to go off of.

They’re now staring at each other and drinking, and Gilfoyle is turned on. Monica drinking is almost as sexy as Monica smoking, but Monica drinking while dancing and eye-fucking him in the middle of a crowded room is the best he’s seen so far. He reaches for her hip with his free hand, and she drapes her arm over his shoulders.

“Want to dance?” she whispers in his ear.

She begins to move her hips while staring at him, and Gilfoyle knows that he’s just going to follow her lead. This is the best night he’s had in months.

Monica then takes his hand and pulls him through the crowd until they end up under the stairs to a different (probably douchier) level of the club and leans against the wall. They kiss in their hidden cove and relish in each other’s company.


	8. Pizza

Monica sees Dinesh out of the corner of her eye when Gilfoyle goes to grab more drinks. He’s moving into the alcove with the red dress lady and they begin kissing. Monica bolts, heading towards the bar, but when she sees Gilfoyle she stops, blown away.

The heat and humidity of the club have caused him to tie his open shirt around his waist and she has no idea where he got the hair tie (does he carry them in his pockets?) but he’s tied his hair up into a man bun. He’s leaning slightly on the bar, waiting for more drinks. Monica sidles up to him and leans on the bar, facing him. He startles a little, but smiles. The drinks arrive, she gestures with her head, and Gilfoyle follows her to the VIP section. 

Jared and Richard pull apart when they arrive. Richard rolls off of Jared’s lap and turns to face them, smiling and red-faced, the pair of them breathing heavily.

“After this round, want to get some pizza?” Monica asks.

The three nod and they all look around for their fifth. The red dress of Dinesh’s companion is easy to spot in the midst of the dancing and she’s pressed against Dinesh, dancing obscenely in a gyrating mess of drunken coupling. 

“Should we…?” Gilfoyle points a thumb at him.

“Yeah, just in case,” Monica says, and watches Gilfoyle walk up to the couple in the most fluid motion. She can’t stop looking at the manbun and his now exposed forearms.

Dinesh must be drunk, because he flings his arms around Gilfoyle in a huge hug and the two exchange just a couple of words.

“He’ll join us wherever we go,” Gilf says when he returns, “he says he needs to ‘seal the deal first and get the digits.’”

Monica, Jared, and Richard start chuckling and Gilfoyle smirks and they down the rest of their drinks. Gilfoyle walks alongside her as they follow the cute couple holding hands on the way out. They only stumble a little on their way down the street, laughing lightly as Richard makes bad joke after bad joke. Nobody laughs harder than Jared, who is fully smiling at Richard. 

They reach a little hole in the wall pizza place and cram into a booth. Dinesh is going to have to pull over a chair to fit. They’re all talking loudly, and Jared and Richard keep losing their trains of thought as they stare at each other. 

“So, pizza, shall we get the pizza time?” Richard says, his awkward phrasing surprising exactly no one, and pulling his stare away from Jared.

“Only if there are no fucking olives,” says Gilfoyle with his usual dour delivery.

Jared starts giggling, and swatting Gilfoyle’s arm, “oh, Gilf. You never fail to crack me up.”

Richard gets up to order the pizza in a long line and Jared stares into both of their eyes. Since Richard isn’t near, Jared starts to really look at both of them for the first time all night, and his eyebrows narrow. His eyes start darting back and forth, and his mouth drops open.  
“You two have had sex this weekend,” he says with a nod. “Multiple times.”

“What?” Monica squeaks, hoping its convincing, but also, oddly enough, hoping it’s not. “What are you saying?”

“Monica,” Gilfoyle says, tentatively placing his hand on her arm, “it’s Jared. He fucking knows.”

He’s right, too. There’s no getting past Jared, who is essentially the human version of a bloodhound of human interaction. It’s probably how he’s so successful in business. 

“I can’t tell you how happy this makes me,” Jared says, immediately starting to tear up. “Though we resemble the most incestuous of all companies, I can’t say I hate this development. And how perfect you two are for one another. Beauty and brains, well, both of you. A head for numbers in different ways. The looks you’re giving each other—”

“But please keep it on the QT for now,” Monica says. “It’s literally just started and, well, it’s still kind of fragile.”

She looks at Gilfoyle who’s almost smiling and completely silent. He nods. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s also kind of nobody’s business.”

“Oh, no worries,” Jared starts sputtering, “and who am I to say a thing? Richard and I found ourselves at my condo after a night of revelry with the company, and the proverbial one thing led to the other, and it’s been incredible. You can’t tell me it’s not magical! And you, too, so intoxicating—”

He cuts himself off, because a very rumpled and smiling Dinesh struts up to their table. He swaggers. He grabs a chair from an empty table, and squats on it backwards and pulls out his phone.

“I got the digits,” he says a bit too loudly. “I can’t hear shit because of that bass and the champagne, but I’m going to get laid.” 

He stretches out the last word, and Gilfoyle’s eyes roll for a long minute. It’s then that Richard walks back with the pizza and the five of them tear into the too hot pizza and beginning ribbing Dinesh on his dance moves. He smiles. Richard keeps interrupting Jared trying to share their entire weekend and asks what they’re all planning on doing for their Monday off.

***

Well, they hadn’t discussed their ‘cover story,’ so he follows Monica’s lead and just lets her talk about some bullshit plan. It involves the dry cleaner’s, a grocery run, and watching Cheers on end. He says some bullshit about playing hours of Call of Duty and hears all about Dinesh planning on going on a date and how Jared is setting up a brunch date with Richard, while Dick blushes a hilarious shade of aubergine.

What are he and Monica going to do tomorrow? He can’t wait to find out.

They end up ordering another pizza and it tastes so good. When they finally start peeling out, Richard and Jared pay and head out, continuing to hold hands, and Dinesh asks if he can get a ride to his new digs. He actually calls them “digs.” She agrees and the three of them head towards the car.

Dinesh keeps buzzing about the woman at the club whose name is something twee like Emmy or Carrie or Tammi (he’s not fully listening because he keeps glancing over at Monica) and doesn’t shut up all the way to the car and then all the way to his very flashy condo. It happens to be a couple of streets away from Monica. 

Monica silently drives back to her parking garage and finds a spot. As soon as the engine is shut off, she leaps out of her seat and straddles him, grabbing his head and kissing him aggressively. She kicks the seat back and he feels himself going more horizontal.

“Your hair,” she breathes into his ear. “It’s working for me.”

He leans back and looks at her, confused. 

“My hair?”

“You tied it back,” she says, before mauling his neck. “It looks really fucking sexy.”

He isn’t quite sure how they make it back up to her condo.


	9. Night

When they get through the door of Monica’s condo, after she manages to get the door open and shove Gilfoyle inside, she has him pressed up against the door and is again mauling his face. There’s no other word for it. Her fingers are threaded into his hair and each part of her torso is pushed against his.

He responds by grabbing her hips and grinding himself against her. His hands glide up to her zipper and he quickly tugs it down as she yanks his tied shirt from around his waist and pulls down his fly. They’re not going to make it to the couch, let alone her bed.

He takes over, lifting her and pushing her against the door and kissing her neck. He switches his method and pulls up her dress while she’s still shoving down his pants. He pulls out his wallet and is so grateful that he put a condom in the billfold before going out.

“Do it,” Monica breathes raggedly, anchoring herself on his shoulders and lifting a leg and staring at him. He hears one of her heels drop off of her foot. In the dark, her eyes are silver, glinting with aggression. “Do it, Gilfoyle. Now.”

He manages to fumble the condom on and sinks into her. 

Not five minutes later, they’re leaning all of their weight on the door, and panting. The pair of them look at each other for long minutes and Gilfoyle says the only thing that makes any sense right now.

“I like you.”

***

Monica wakes at five with a pressing need for a glass of water. She and Gilfoyle had fallen into bed after just dropping their clothes in a crumpled heap on the bedroom floor. She also needs to brush her teeth and grabs a robe, shuffling towards the bathroom. 

With extra toothpaste, she scrubs at her teeth and notices that her mascara has racooned into a fine circle around her eyes, her hair looks like a nest, and she’s never felt better.

When she gets to the kitchen, she sucks down an entire pint glass full of water and then another. Her brain starts clicking into gear then, thinking about how good it feels to have Gilfoyle in her house for days at a time. She also begins thinking about how they’re going to break this to the rest of the team and how she really needs to fucking talk about her recent annulment. Especially since Kurt had been in her life in the last year. 

She hates that her brain functions the best this early in the morning. 

She shuffles back to bed, this time with two full glasses, leaving one next to Gilfoyle. She sits on the edge of the bed and just looks at Gilfoyle, lying prone, completely relaxed. She wants to reach out and touch his hair, but that might be too creepy.

“I like you, too,” she whispers.

“Consider me relieved,” Gilfoyle says in a conversational tone.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Since you got up and brushed your teeth.”

“I’m sorry, I thought I was being quiet.”

“No worries, I slept like a fucking brick.”

Monica smiles at that, because he did fall asleep immediately after they had sex.

“Did you have fun at the club?” she asks. 

“I did get lucky, so I suppose it was a success,” he answers, and Monica can hear the smirk in his voice. “And the company was good, minus Dinesh and Dick.”

“You’ve got a soft spot for Jared?”

“He’s alright.”

“Wow, don’t gush too much over the guy,” she snorts, “you might hurt my feelings.”

Gilfoyle sits up and looks somehow both older and younger without his glasses. He looks exhausted, but also sharp, constantly thinking and plotting out what he’s going to build next, either a pointed barb or a makeshift server. 

“It was a good night that ended very well,” he says, “and I’m relieved that Dick and Jared are finally no longer sneaking around.”

“You knew about that?”

“I’d had my suspicions,” he answers, interrupting himself with a yawn, “and then I saw Jared in Richard’s office during one late night code sprint. They thought I’d left already and turned the lights off on me. Richard’s light was still on, and I saw Jared shove him against the window in his office. I left before it got too…”

“Graphic?”

“Yeah,” he says, “but Richard is a great guy and Jared already keeps him in check. I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our fucking faces in a couple of months. That I can’t see.”

Monica takes a breath to ask a question but cuts herself off. 

“If you’re going to asked if I’m worried about us,” Gilfoyle says, “and I’m not saying there’s anything here beyond what you’d like, I’m not worried.”

“Do you want to… date?”

“If that means sex, eating together, and continuing to do what we’re already doing, I have no problems with that.”

“Why do you like me?”

The words are out of Monica’s mouth before she really thinks how or why she’s said them. Gilfoyle stares at her for a long moment.

“I won’t lie and say that your face and body weren’t the first thing I noticed about you, because you’re beautiful, Monica. But it’s one thing to like someone because they’re attractive, versus noticing someone because of that. I think you’re very intelligent. I like that you smoke and hate that about yourself. You have decent taste in TV shows and excellent taste in tacos. You say fuck more times than I think I have on any given day.” 

“Oh,” she says, completely stunned. “Thank you.”

“While this has been highly scintillating, Monica, I think a couple more hours of sleep could be useful.”

“Want some water first?”

“Yes,” he says, adding as an afterthought, “please.”

They fall asleep as the sun rises, Gilfoyle resting his head against her shoulder.


	10. Work

They spend the whole day together, this time venturing out for brunch to a place where the waitress taking their order keeps eyeing up Gilfoyle. Monica feels herself getting irritated and brings it up as they’re leaving. Gilfoyle is confused when Monica describes the flirtation.

“She was practically eye-fucking you,” she grumbles.

Gilfoyle eyebrows knit together and he just shakes his head as they walk back to the car. 

“Why are you so confused?”

“I’m not confused, he answers, “more surprised. She didn’t see you?”

“Well, yeah,” she says, “but you’re hot.”

“My hair isn’t even up,” he smirks.

Oh, he’s going to pay for that, she thinks.

***

Gilfoyle could get used to this brunch bullshit. While he hates socializing and would love to fuck over capitalism, eating perfectly cooked eggs while talking about nothing with Monica is pretty, well, rad. 

He spends the rest of the day at the hacker hostel; no need to raise the suspicions of Dinesh. Though he has his own place, Dinesh still spends most of his time over at Newell Road. They spend Monday playing video games, though Dinesh is still pretty wrecked from his night out and keeps interrupting to text Emmi. The red-dressed lady is apparently also in tech and works for another start-up. Dinesh keeps rattling off random facts about her, like how she’s from the middle of nowhere Iowa, how her dad recently moved to New York, and that she has a Master of Fine Arts in performing arts as well as a doctorate in computer science.

“You are punching well above your weight class,” says Gilfoyle.

“I know,” Dinesh says, “but we’re planning on dinner this Thursday. So I have three more days to fuck it all up.”

The next day at work begins pretty normally, with Gilfoyle arriving at around 9:30am, which is essentially the crack of dawn. Monica is set up in the conference room with a few of the programmers, some new committee that he deliberately decided to ignore. He now finds himself curious about it. 

Monica definitely catches his eye but manages not to skip a beat in her presentation. He made the last-minute decision to tie his hair up and thinks that this may have been a stupid gesture.

There’s really not much to do except for keep an eye on PPC and debug code. Richard hasn’t made any announcements on what’s next on the agenda, and he knows today is going to be pretty fucking boring. Well, except for Monica. 

The door to the meeting room opens and the programmers file out, chatting animatedly with each other. She gathers up her stuff, looks directly at him, and jerks her head to the smaller meeting room. The windowless room.

He fucks around with his computer before locking his system. He’s pretty sure she’s not going to ask him about anything work-related.

He takes his time walking to the small room and walks into her sitting on top of the presenter’s desk. She has her legs crossed at the ankle and is wearing a dark gray pencil skirl and flowy blue blouse. Her heels are very tall. The room is usually used for focus groups or training modules, so it has a bit of a classroom feel.

“Lock the door,” she says.

He does. Slowly.

“Come here.”

“Does the CFO have any important business for me?” he asks wryly, but feels a smile breaking over his face.

“I don’t know if I’d call it that,” she says in a deep voice, which goes straight to his dick. “But it is important.” 

He manages to walk over to Monica who holds out her hand and stops him for a second, before grabbing his shirt and pulling him to her and kissing him aggressively. She pulls him against her, wrapping her legs around his waist, and he feels very exposed and over the top.

“I only have about five minutes,” she says, “but you tied your hair up on purpose. I know you did this shit on purpose.”

He leaves the meeting room about six minutes later, feeling a little used but very satisfied. He’s going to keep tying back his goddamn hair when he goes to work. He’s going to be incredibly unproductive, but he’s okay with that.

When he heads to the kitchen for his second bowl of cereal of that morning, Jared walks up to him with an irritatingly large smile on his face, and Gilfoyle knows he’s not getting work done until after lunch if he’s at all lucky.

“Hello, Gilfoyle,” Jared begins, “hope you’re having a happy Tuesday! What did you do with your day off?”

His voice is positively saccharine and dripping with double meaning, which is amazingly irritating, but he likes the guy. 

“I had brunch,” Gilfoyle deadpans.

“As did I!” Jared says, “I took my special someone to a new spot where they made mimosas with different fruit blends and layered French toast. I feel so well rested and couldn’t have had a better time.”

“Outstanding,” says Gilfoyle, beginning to turn and walk away with his obol.

“Can I take you out for lunch, Gilf?” Jared asks, and there’s a nervous energy to his voice. “I would really like to discuss some things about our latest program with you.”

“We don’t have a latest program, Jared.”

“It’s not released, yet, but it’s very proprietary and important right now.”

Gilfoyle hopes that Jared means what he says, because he’s going to lose his shit if it’s a personal friend lunch. He’s been trapped in a couple of these with Jared before, and they’re all pretty intense. 

But he will take free lunch with one of the less irritating people in the office.


	11. Lunch

“How are you, Gilf?” says Jared from across the table. 

“Great,” he says with no emotion. He’s just so grateful that the nickname is resurfacing. So fucking grateful.

They’re at a fancy bistro or gastropub, or some shit that serves hoity-toity made up shit from different types of cuisine together. What’s wrong with a goddamn sandwich? Jared seems to fit in here.

“I just thought it would be fun to have a boy’s lunch out, if you know I mean,” he says, a huge smile spreading across his face. 

“That’s not a thing,” Gilfoyle says tersely, “and it never has been, and it never will be. Even if it were, I would never know what you mean. Ever.”

“Okay, then, a man’s lunch out?”

“I’m fine with referring to this as lunch.”

“Back to basics,” Jared says, threading his fingers together, fairly conspiratorially, “I like that, and I like you.”

Gilfoyle is a little peeved at the way Jared is using that phrase so easily, ‘I like you,’ but he supposes that Jared wouldn’t ever know or guess or anything. Wow, he feels super paranoid. That’s weird as hell.

“Well,” Jared continues and Gilfoyle senses that this is going to be a very long lunch, “I just thought it would be nice to discuss the special people in our lives. And also offer some guidance. You know, be a good friend and colleague all at once.”

Great. This is going to be a long as hell lunch that will feel like his toenails are being ripped out. He’s pretty sure the sentimentality will cause Jared to cry, or at least softly weep. Jared is a little too skilled at weeping in a very melodramatic and loud way.

“So,” Jared says, “how is it coupling with the lovely Monica Hall?”

Gilfoyle closes his eyes and wills the strength to not run out of the restaurant and never talk to anyone ever again. 

“Of all the ways that you could have possibly phrased that, you chose that word.”

“I was trying to be delicate.”

“Just talk.”

“Okay,” says Jared. “I did lie to you, and for that I am truly sorry. To think I would lie to a colleague as well as a dear friend of many years—”

“No, this is worse. Just talk about the matter at hand, Jared. No flowery shit. You have very limited chances now.”

“Alright. I will say I lied to you,” he starts, yet again. “I lied to you about the way I started dating Richard. We really began about six months ago.”

Gilfoyle does have to hand it to the pair: he’s honestly surprised they lasted this long without anyone busting them.

“I don’t know if you knew, but I’ve been out for a few years. I’m bisexual. I don’t know why I haven’t told you before. But I think I’ve held an attraction for Richard since I formally met him in the waiting area outside of Gavin Belson’s office. What a delight he was, his brain, his smile, and his overall demeanor. I truly love him.”

Yep, he’s definitely weeping. There are only tears, but it’s too much. It’s already been the longest lunch ever and they’ve barely sat down. He actually misses Dinesh right now.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m just proud.”

“I can tell,” Gilfoyle says.

“So, how about you?”

“I’m great.”

“It’s your turn.”

“To eat? I’m pretty fucking hungry.”

“No, Gilfoyle, it’s your turn to talk about your… may I say lover.”

“You may not.”

“Is girlfriend more apropos?”

“Can’t say it is.”

“Alright,” Jared says, looking pleased with herself, “How is Monica?”

Gilfoyle decides that, since Jared’s actually listening to him, he can be a little bit honest with Jared. Only a little.

“I like her,” he starts, “and she likes me. We have sex, we eat tacos, and that’s about it. We’re both okay with it.”

Oh, good, Jared is again openly weeping at a lunch bistro on a Tuesday in full display of everyone, just because he admitted to having some positive feelings about another person. 

***

Monica decides to take herself out for a lunch because she might need to get her head on straight. She’s avoiding seeing Gilfoyle because she feels like she’s a little out of control high on oxytocin. She can’t keep doing stuff with Gilfoyle like a softcore porn at work. That would be insane, and she would have to report herself to Jared out of guilt. 

So, she finds herself at a new gastropub that’s a little bit out of the way from work, but not so far that she’ll take too long going back to work. It’s called Colette’s and she smiles at the fact that Gilfoyle would fucking hate it here. There’s so much tinkling piano music and tastefully appointed decorations. He’d also probably poke fun of the dumb names for the menu items. 

And she’s a totally jarred and flummoxed when she sits down in a tiny booth and is facing this very same man she’s been daydreaming about like some dumb teenager. His hair is still tied back and he’s sitting across from Jared. She can see Jared talking animatedly and Gilfoyle sitting there stoically and answering in very short responses. The amount of coincidence is absolutely uncanny and fairly uncomfortable.

Should she go over to them? She can actually overhear what they’re saying, just a little. Jared’s in the middle of a huge gush about Richard and it’s honestly very sweet. Gilfoyle looks nonplussed. 

Jared is then goading him into talking about her. She suddenly feels out of place, like she chose this restaurant specifically to spy on him.

“We’re both okay with it.”

If she’d heard anyone talk about her like that in the past, she might have been irritated or even offended. For Gilfoyle, it’s actually sweet. He’s saying it in a way that’s true, honest, and he isn’t sidestepping it at all. 

The food comes to their table, and they keep talking, with Jared wiping at his eyes every now and then. Gilfoyle says a few more things about Monica, and they’re fairly neutral and innocuous, but she hears them as charged.

“She watches a lot of Cheers.”

“She likes to smoke.”

“She had fun at the club.”

There’s a lot of discussion about the club night, and her food has now arrived. Gilfoyle and Jared get up to go, and that’s when he happens to look over to her.


	12. Waiting

Gilfoyle’s first thought is that Monica followed him here, which is just pure paranoia and a bit of (a lot of) excitement at seeing her not too far from him. He decides to pull out his phone instead of walking over to her. If Jared happens to see her, there’s going to be even more sentimental cooing and he doesn’t think that he needs any more of that. Especially not in public in front of other folks. 

12:46pm: Fancy seeing you here.

He doesn’t get a reply until he and Jared are in the car.

[Monica] 12:49pm: I like it here.

[Gilfoyle] 12:49pm: It was okay. 

[Monica]: 12:50pm: The company on my end could have been better.

[Monica]: 12:51pm: And this morning was fun.

[Monica]: 12:51pm: My place at 7:00 tonight?

[Gilfoyle]: 12:53pm: As long as there’s beer.

[Monica]: 12:54pm: …

[Monica]: 12:55pm: Are you serious?

[Gilfoyle]: 12:58pm: I’m very serious about beer.

[Monica]: 1:01pm: If you can manage to bring your own beer, I can manage to forget my clothes.

Gilfoyle feels warmer and has completely blocked out what Jared has been saying. Jared keeps darting glances at him.

“Are you blushing, Gilfoyle?” he says with a very irritating smile. “You look a little hot and bothered, my friend. Your lady love been texting you?”

“One: just say Monica. Two: I’ve never blushed in my life. Three: I’m not hot, but I am bothered, by my so-called lunch buddy.”

“Oh, we should be lunch buddies,” says Jared. “I’ll create a shared calendar event biweekly. You were texting our dear Monica?”

“Yes,” Gilfoyle answers. “About beer.”

“Ah,” Jared nods knowingly as they pull into work’s parking garage, “so you’re having a drink with Monica tonight? How lovely.”

“How did you jump from point A to point fuck-all in that amount of time?”

“I’m pretty good at reading human interaction, behavior, and so on. I could tell that you and Monica were sexually active this weekend because of how you kept glancing at each other in a very new and very particular way. It was very tender.”

“You can stop that exactly now.”

“I’m sorry for making you feel uncomfortable, Gilf,” Jared says sincerely, “but I’m betting I’m pretty on the mark.”

“Yes,” he begrudgingly admits. “I’m pretty sure that we’re going to drink beer tonight and that’s all that you will know.”

They reach the front door of the office and Jared mimes taking off a hat and putting one on. 

“Alright, work mode,” he says jauntily, “see you inside, Senior Network Analyst.”

Gilfoyle watches him go through and pulls out his phone one more time.

***

[Gilfoyle]: 1:14pm: See you then.

The text is short, lacks elaboration or detail, and makes her smile. She swipes out and opens her calendar. She has one meeting at 3:30 with her marketing committee, and then nothing afterwards. She decides that she can leave a little early and starts thinking about what she can do for over two hours between work and Gilfoyle. 

Though she’s had lots of sex with Gilfoyle, something about planning a night like tonight is making her more nervous than she has before. She’s not sure how exactly it’s going to go, but has to put her energy into her committee.

The meeting goes by so slowly. It’s hard to concentrate, because she’s facing Gilfoyle from her vantage in the meeting area. Why was she so much of a dumbass to face him? He keeps moving back and forth between his workstation and an empty desks behind him where he has a big stack of server parts that he’s configuring. She’s not sure why he’s doing this exact puzzling, but he’s rolled up his sleeves and redoubled his hair tie efforts. 

Her eye keeps landing on his big silver ring. She really likes those hands, wrists, and especially forearms. 

One of her team has asked her a question.

“Are you okay, Ms. Hall?” Tim asks.

“Yes, sorry,” she answers, “I’m just a little tired from the long weekend. You were saying something about engagement, and I was being extraordinarily rude. Could we rewind a few minutes?”

Tim graciously recaps his meticulous research and she forces herself to stare at him and writes down some of the keywords so she can formulate some variety of response, even if superficial.

They end their meeting with everyone having divvied up their strategy tasks. She’s scheduled a catch-up meeting for Friday and rushed out of the room and quickly past Gilfoyle who is a little sweatier than usual. 

She leans into Richard’s office. He’s busy sounding off on the latest misfortune, wearing his Pied Piper sweatshirt, while Jared is intently listening and taking notes.

“Richard?”

He looks up mid-rant, a deer in the headlights.

“Hi, Monica.”

“I’m headed out and going home a little early.”

“Okay, you know that you don’t have to let me know.”

“Jared has let me know otherwise.”

This is tedious.

“Well, okay. Thanks for everything, Monica. I had fun this weekend.”

It’s very touching for Richard, and she smiles and ducks out to the parking lot. She has quite a few things to organize before 7:00. 

***

Gilfoyle has deliberately been ducking eye contact with Monica all afternoon while he puzzles with server pieces, running different code for the platform over it. He kept himself busy mostly to stop himself from staring at Monica in another meeting where she was fucking facing him. He’s honestly just dicking around with the tech, but what else is he going to do for the rest of the day? Richard is still doing dumb strategy.

Before he knows it, it’s past five, and he heads back towards the hacker hostel. He decides it’s probably a good idea to shower, brush his teeth, and he stops by the supermarket when he heads out the door to pick up beer. He also sees flowers and spends a good three minutes staring at them before picking out some tiger lilies. He doesn’t remember ever picking up flowers before. He also decides to grab some cheesecake, because why the hell not?

He gets a little nervous when he walks up to door of her condo and knocks.


	13. Candles

The door swings open as Gilfoyle knocks. The apartment is dark except for a soft glow coming from dimmed overhead lights and a few candles on the kitchen counter, the coffee table, and on various end tables. It’s very flammable and he’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be seductive. There’s even soft music playing in the background. He puts the cheesecake on the breakfast bar and walks in with the flowers still in hand and kicks off his shoes. He also thinks to close the door.

He then notices that there’s a note on the bar. It says simply, “Bedroom.”

This is decidedly weird and confusing, but also hot. Because she invited him over for just sex.

He feels like a tool with the flowers, but he bought them for her, and he takes them in as he walks down the hallway. He feels a lot of trepidation, but his curiosity and his cock carry him down the hallway to the bedroom.

When the door opens, Monica has a glass of brown liquor in hand, and looks up when she hears the door open.

“You’re here,” she says and smiles.

This room is lit low, too, with two gigantic candles, one on each bedside table. Still, he can see that she’s wearing what looks to be a vintage, royal blue, and very sheer robe. It’s ruffled at the end of its bell sleeves and ties at the top. It’s so short, and he gets a perfect view of her legs up to the top of her thighs.

“You brought me flowers?” she asks, and looks up at him, her smile growing.

“I thought you’d like them.”

“Well,” she says, “put them down on the dresser. We’ll put them in water afterwards.”

“Afterwards?” he says, smirking. Still, he’s nervous, his hands are practically vibrating.

“Yes,” she says, “take off your shirt.”

He does, no hesitation.

***

Monica gets home at 5:00 and puts her very elaborate, very over-the-top, very ~~romantic~~ sexy plan, because she’s never done shit like this and she wants to do something over-the-top and ridiculous. So, she takes out a ton of candles and places them at various spots all over the apartment. She never uses them, but she wants to see how far she can push Gilfoyle. What the hell, might be the right day to use the low lights that her contractor talked her into buying but never actually turns on. They don’t give much light, and they freak her out when she’s home alone. Which is more frequent than not, until this past week.

She puts in an order for Indian food to arrive at 8:30 to give them both time to have plenty of sex and be ready to eat anything in front of them.

She scrubs her face, reapplies make-up, and fishes out her consignment store find. She found it with a friend when they were shopping, and it looked like something straight out of the 1950s. Taylor had convinced her to buy it after she’d tried it on as a joke. It barely skirted her ass, but Taylor had claimed that she looked like a perfect pin-up model. 

For the final piece of the puzzle, she puts on lo-fi beats and unlocks and opens the door. This is probably very daring to the point of a little unsafe, but she only sees one of her neighbors once every few weeks.

She looks at the time: 5:30. What the hell is she going to do for an hour and a half? She paces around the apartment and pulls out a book she hasn’t read yet, something from the bestseller list with a sentence fragment of a title. She can’t concentrate on any of the singular words. She flips channels for a while, staring at her crossed feet resting on the table. There’s a marathon of _Sex and the City_ , a cooking show with various worldwide locations, and some teen soap opera that immediately captures her attention.

Are her tastes really so juvenile, she asks herself, still finding herself being dragged into the absolutely mesmerizing cinematography and fairly good acting. She’s able to kill the next hour by watching this show and almost feels disappointment shutting it off.

It’s 6:55. Gilfoyle should be here fairly soon. While he’s often late to work, he tends to be fairly punctual when he arrives at her place. She scrawls a note reading “bedroom” and leaves it on the breakfast bar, just to complete her tableau.

She pours two glasses of whiskey down to her bedroom and places them on the bedside table. She takes a sip and looks at the candle next to her. She sincerely hopes that she doesn’t light the entire condo aflame.

Monica hears the door open and the shuffle of Gilfoyle slipping of his shoes. She’s relieved to hear him shut the door behind him, surprised to hear the latch slide into place. Her paranoid Gilfoyle.

He shuffles down the hall and then the door opens. He’s wearing socks, dark jeans, a very tight t-shirt (this is a new article of clothing), and his hair back. The biggest surprise is the bouquet he’s holding. She tells him to place it aside, smiling wide because this is the sweetest gesture she’s seen from him.

The look on his face is causing her a fire igniting deep in her core. He keeps sweeping his hot gaze over her legs and lingers at the spot where the robe hits the top of her legs. His eyes flick up to hers and they’re both breathing heavily.

She says few words until he’s tugging his shirt off at her insistence and walking towards her. She reaches over to unbuckle his belt all while staring directly at him. He climbs on the bed, wearing nothing, and slowly begins peeling off her robe.

Suddenly, it’s all passion and tangled limbs and Gilfoyle is sliding on a condom and they are fucking. There’s really no other word for their actions, for the fast pace, the moans, and when Gilfoyle fingers her clit, Monica practically screams. The orgasm hits hard. Gilfoyle grinds through his. They pant heavily as Gilfoyle rolls over and lies next to her.

“So you went all-out on this seduction?” Gilfoyle asks, amused.

“I left work early because I couldn’t concentrate,” she answers.

***

Did Monica just admit that she left work because of him? He’s not sure, so, he asks.

“You couldn’t concentrate because of me?”

“I just couldn’t concentrate today,” she says, “I think the three-day weekend threw me.”

“You mean the three-day weekend in which we had sex numerous times and continued into our office, the place where we both work?”

“I’ve never done well with three-day weekends.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “couldn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t have to roll up your sleeves at work.”

“Ah, yes, my arms.”

“Fine,” she says, eyes rolling derisively, defeatedly, “it was you. You were very into whatever tech you were furiously manipulating earlier today.”

“Did you just say… furiously manipulating?”

Monica cringes, pulls the covers over her face, eking out a muffled, “yes.”

“I enjoyed our morning, too,” Gilfoyle says, gently unpeeling the sheet, “but tonight was pretty fantastic, too. I guess I bought into this whole situation, too. The flowers and the cheesecake--”

“Oh, I’ll go put the flowers in water!”

Monica stands up, giving Gilfoyle an amazing view of her legs, torso, breasts, everything, and slips on the robe. She picks up and smells the lilies and dashes out of the room. She quickly slips back asking, “did you say cheesecake?”


	14. Travel

The next few weeks fare rather the same, with Gilfoyle meeting at Monica’s about once a week, if not more. Richard has made headway with the new internet and everything is starting to heat up at work.

The problem comes when the pair of them are put in charge of a new committee. Richard has been going absolutely crazy for the creation of committees. Gilfoyle has managed to stay out of the whole committee bullshit, but then Richard tells them both, during a long-drawn meeting in his office, that they’re in need of going on a mini-tour of the West Coast to different trade shows of various scale, and the possibility of an East Coast run as well.

“International might be on the table as well,” Richard says, starting off on a long and rambling rant filled with awkward and effusive hand gestures. “I need to stay here for the daily tasks and Dinesh is still hacking away on the front end, since our servers are running smoothly—”

“Unsurprisingly,” Gilfoyle mutters.

“Essentially, you two are longest-running pair of Pied Piper supervisors who can be spared now and in the near future for this travel,” Richard continues, “and we need two people who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic. I have a feeling that we’re going to hit the big leagues soon.”

“When does our travel begin?” Monica says, her eyebrows deeply furrowed.

“Two weeks from now is the Las Vegas show.”

“Vegas?” Gilfoyle asks. He’s not pleased with this turn of events. He hates crowds, tourist traps, and casinos.

“Yes, Vegas,” Richard says, an awkward smile on his face as he threads his fingers in front of him.

“And who else is going?” Monica asks.

“It’s going to be the pair of you.”

“Alright,” she says, “anything else?”

“I’ll get the travel itinerary to you,” says Richard, “well, Jared will. This was primarily his idea.”

Monica’s eyes meet Gilfoyle’s very briefly before she leaves and goes to sit at her desk, hand rubbing her temple.

“Fucking Vegas?” Gilfoyle asks.

“Fucking Vegas, baby!” Richard says, adding the worst little double air punch.

“Thanks, Dick.”

Gilfoyle walks back to his desk and wanders if Jared just created a disgusting and romantic gesture for the pair of them. Does work have any play here?

***

[Gilfoyle]: 10:32am: Are we seriously going on a fucking work trip?

[Monica]: 10:38am: Looks like it.

[Monica]: 10:40am: I really hate Vegas.

[Gilfoyle]: 10:45am: I’ve never had the pleasure.

[Gilfoyle]: 10:46am: But I’ve had too much fun for one lifetime with gambling and assholes.

[Monica]: 10:53am: Then you’re prepared.

[Gilfoyle]: 10:56am: Outstanding.

[Monica]: 11:37am: My place tonight?

[Monica]: 11:38am: I can promise dinner and a relaxed dress code.

[Monica]: 11:48am: I’m also hungry for more cheesecake.

[Gilfoyle]: 12:29pm: See you at 7pm.

[Gilfoyle]: 12:32pm: Don’t count on cheesecake every time.

***

Monica is excited to get out of Palo Alto for a while. Apart from her occasional trips to the beach, Baltimore for the holidays, and some infrequent international jaunts every couple of years, it’s been pre-Pied Piper since she went very far from this technology and computer hellhole.

She’s packing her carry-on bag and hoping to get as much as she can into it. She has weird separation anxiety from her checked luggage when she flies. So far, there are a few skirts, blouses, her pajamas, and now she’s wondering whether or not to take a bathing suit. It is Vegas and there will be a pool. She throws it in, thinking it’ll be nice to have just in case.

Most of her anxiety is coming from the worst planning Jared has ever enacted. Gilfoyle will actually be sitting on a panel to answer questions about start-ups and tech involved. On paper, it makes complete sense. Pied Piper has fallen down the ladder of start-up fails and hit every rung, somehow coming out on top against all of the very, very insane odds.

In reality, it’s going to be a shit show. And she’s going to be on the panel as well. She just hopes that she’s not going to become a translator for all of the tech, because that’s going to be a total nightmare.

Thank God Vegas is soaked in liquor.

The car will be picking her up tomorrow at 7am for a commercial flight out of SF. Jared has gotten her a business class seat next to Gilfoyle. They’re staying at some fancy hotel or other, but they’re still going to be in the middle of the fucking desert.

This is going to be a long four days.

It’s only 6pm, so she’s going to have some leftovers, a nice glass of wine, and settles into an episode of Criminal Minds before bed.

***

Gilfoyle hates packing for any kind of trip. He doesn’t hate travel but having any sort of work attire is not really his forte nor his style. He’s just going to put on a jacket over his usual clothes. Because dress pants are garbage.

He is looking forward to sitting in a hot tub. For some reason, those hot bowls of germ soup are very relaxing to him, and he checked that the hotel has one. He’s going to need it after actually sitting on a fucking panel on two separate days, and at a booth for the rest of the time. It’s kind of below him, but he’s excited for... the hot tub.

He pulls out his board shorts, looks at them, and dumps them unceremoniously into his duffel bag. He also packs beach shoes. Which he actually owns.

If Dinesh ever finds out how much he loves swimming and the ocean, he will set all of his gear on fire.

It’s only 10pm, so he decides he might as well cram in a couple hours of coding before sleeping for a couple of hours. He hates going to bed before 1am, so this 7:30am car pick-up time is going to be ass.


	15. Swimming

Monica climbs in the back of the town car and Gilfoyle is already sitting there, looking extraordinarily comfortable. His hair is up in a whole man bun. The bun looks really, really good. He smiles at her as she shuffles in. It’s a forty-minute drive, but they’re still going to have enough time in the airport to wait two hours for a two-hour flight. 

“Ready for four days in the desert?” she asks Gilfoyle.

“I’m barely ready for the airport,” he answers dourly, “or the day.”

“Well, fortunately, we only have to get to the show floor for a tour, and our first panel isn’t until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Outstanding.”

“Got anything you want to do for the rest of the day?”

“I need to keep on top of remote system management. But that’ll only eat up about an hour of my day.”

“Want to get some Pied Piper-sponsored dinner?”

“Anything sponsored by Dick that doesn’t involve him is excellent in my book.”

They remain quiet for the rest of the car ride. They get to the airport even earlier than anticipated and there’s only a small line for security. Gilfoyle sets off the metal detector and looks deflated when the agent pulls him to the side.

When he’s finally given his bag after a minutes-long inspection of his laptop (Monica has never seen him look so anxious or antsy) he just grunts “coffee.”

They find their gate and a coffee shop nearby. Monica offers to get the coffee and orders the largest sizes of black coffee for each of them. She opens the top when she sits next to them to get more coffee smell in her nostrils.

“Black coffee?” he asks.

“I think that you’re rubbing off on me,” she says with a small smile. Feeling a little more daring, she makes a small decision and dips her head onto his shoulder. She feels him tense and then relax. A middle-aged woman, wearing a glitzy top, cropped pants, and wedge flip-flops that match her glasses chain, a complete stereotype gives them a warm smile before looking back at her magazine.

“And now you’re rubbing your scalp all over me.”

“Mind if I nap on you?”

“I suppose I don’t,” he says slowly. “as long as you let me take the airplane.”

The announcements start rolling in and the magazine reading lady gets up but leans over to Gilfoyle. Even though her eyes are closed in the hopes of gaining a bit of rest, she still hears her say, “you two make a great couple.”

“Thank you,” Gilfoyle says suspiciously. 

When they finally get on the plane, the pair of them have a pair of lush seats and the flight attendant offers them a drink. Since it’s the morning, the pair of them get mimosas, and Gilfoyle swallows his in one fell gulp before plopping his head onto her shoulder. The weight of his head is comforting.

“Wake me for snacks.”

Two hours later, and they’re in the middle of the goddamn desert and neither are very happy about that. However, the Venetian is palatial, possibly a real-life hyperbole. This is probably due to Jared who is trying to sway them with a romantic setting and insane resort amenities.

“I hope there’s at least one hot tub that isn’t crowded with drunk assholes,” Monica says as they trek through the gigantic lobby. 

Their rooms are on the top floor, but they only have two hours before they need to get to the convention center. They take the elevator up to their floor and find their rooms are next to each other. Like their rooms meant for an affair. 

Jared did his goddamn homework.

“See you inside?” asks Monica.

Gilfoyle just smiles and nods slowly. 

When she walks in, she worries she’s going to get lost, due to the fact that this room is larger than her actual condo. There are levels, a rail overlooking a second level, a full-service kitchenette, and yes, the bathroom has a personal hot tub. 

She hears a knock somewhere the bed area and sees a tasteful and tiny door. She opens it to a smirking Gilfoyle.

“Is your room bigger than your condo, too?”

“I think it’s bigger than the hostel.”

He steps in and takes a look around.

“I should hate this, but this is kind of fun. I’m going to disrupt this hot tub later.”

Monica laughs. “I honestly can’t see you enjoying a hot tub.”

Gilfoyle looks away from the hot tub and walks a few steps towards the window. She knows by now that this is what happens when he’s embarrassed. Quiet and private.

“Wait, do you really enjoy going in the hot tub?” 

“Yes.”

His answer is so quiet that she almost misses it. She is now looking forward to this almost unnecessary and definitely stupid work trip. If it involves getting to lie in this ridiculous room for a few days and she also is going to see her work friend with benefits in swim trunks, she’s very ready. 

“Well, you’re welcome to join me tonight.”

“Will there be whiskey?”

“We’re in Vegas,” she says, “would you expect anything else?”

***

The trek to the convention center and the tour of the facility are uncomfortable. Gilfoyle is going to get to do two of his favorite things tonight. Drink in a hot tub. To cap it off, Monica will be there. And it sounds like she has a bathing suit with her in the gigantic hotel room adjoined to his. 

He really needs to get his head together, because he wants to remember where to go tomorrow for the panel. Which means that he’s not going to be able to drink as much as he’d like. At least he’ll still have the hot tub, which he can’t think about right now, especially not with an eager Monica walking next to him and asking real questions.

He’s definitely going to throw himself into his goddamn work this afternoon. He needs to concentrate on something that’s not Monica’s legs and hips in her perfect skirt and blouse.

They’re go on the stage for their walk-through, and it’s just about as big as the Tech Crunch Disrupt stage, but there’s a table with chairs behind it on this stage. Instead of futzing with tech, he’ll have to actually talk. He’s really grateful that Monica’s with him. 

“How long will the question and answer segment be?” she asks of the stage producer.

“Fifteen minutes, after forty-five for the panelist talks with the moderator. Anything else?”

“Are we going to be able to present anything?” Gilfoyle surprises himself by asking.

Monica looks surprised, too. 

“If you can give it to us beforehand, we can definitely show some minimal material.”

Monica smiles and nods, her eyes light and staring at him. This work trip is becoming better and better.

They finally get back to the hotel room and Gilfoyle throws himself into work. There are always patches and debugging to be done on the system, and he finds solace in the repetition and the strong hotel wifi. He jumps when he hears the adjoining door knock. It’s after seven. 

He walks over to the door and Monica is standing there, wearing a small black bikini and a sarong.


	16. Talking

Gilfoyle is still wearing his trademark baseball shirt and jeans, but his shoes are off and he’s wearing slides. Monica didn’t know he owned anything other than… regular sneakers. Weirdly, his socks are still on, but she’s glad to see he’s got a bottle of beer in hand. He’s tied his hair back and looks flushed, and she’s not sure it’s because of her wardrobe change or work. He’d said that he was going to do some system maintenance when they got back, and he gets fairly physical from time to time. 

When his eyes sweep her up and down, she knows that her plan has worked. She hasn’t worn a sarong since her very bad honeymoon. She feels a little stupid, but she has been able to look forward to a good, warm soak. 

“Are you headed downstairs?” he asks.

“Didn’t really feel like it,” she answers. “Are you done with work for the day?”

“I think I could stand to be done with system maintenance for the day.”

“Can I come in?”

He does look surprised by this, but nods. She walks into the mirror image of her room which is stocked with a few six-packs on the kitchenette counter and his duffel flung onto a dresser. She takes a beer and opens it, while he disappears into the bathroom. When he reemerges a short time later, he’s wearing a pair of basic black trunks and his hair is still tied back.

“How often do you go swimming, Gilfoyle?” she asks.

“Not often,” he says, “but I used to dive.”

“Excuse me, did you say dive?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to elaborate?”

“Nope.”

She laughs at that, but follows him back into her room, listening to the slap of his slides against the deep plush carpet. He kicks them off and steps into the tub. He groans in pleasure as the heat seeps over him. 

There’s a knock on the door and Monica slides on a robe and walks over to the door. A porter carries an ice bucket and a large bucket of champagne, and another follows him, carrying a huge platter of all sorts of deep-fried snacks, including onion rings and mozzarella sticks. It’s a high-brow, low-brow situation, and will be perfect in the hot tub. Highly indulgent, but if they’re in the Venetian, they’re going to do everything possible.

“Did you just order the entire late-night snack section of the room service menu?”

“Maybe,” she answers coyly. “We have to soak the booze up with something.”

The porters set it all up right next to the hot tub and Gilfoyle reaches over and grabs a handful of friend food and unceremoniously crams a ton in his mouth.

“We do have plates,” Monica says.

The porters leave and Monica sheds her robe and the sarong and pours two glasses of champagne. Gilfoyle clinks it lightly against hers, and once again, she smiles. He really can be sweet behind the heavily angry and aggressive asshole demeanor, and she hopes that their arrangement is at least encouraging that. She’s been scared to label them, because she doesn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who uses casually bigoted sentences, as a joke or otherwise.

“What are we drinking to?” she asks, changing tack in her mind. 

“Vegas,” he intones.

They both laugh pretty raucously before taking a sip. Monica tries gracefully lowering into the tub, but slips at the last second, causing Gilfoyle to catch her by the hip.

***

The problem Gilfoyle is facing now is that he actually is beginning to enjoy Las Vegas. It’s the ass ache of the West, and he finds gambling to be a personal problem. But sitting in a hot tub with a barely clad Monica in between his hands with her body practically draped over his is fantastic.

Having a barely clad Monica now sitting next to him and cramming wontons into his mouth isn’t a bad way to exist on a regular basis. He hopes that this becomes a habit for the rest of the trip. Monica tips back her glass and takes a deep breath. That’s not what he was expecting.

“Are we dating?” she asks. “Because I don’t know if we should.”

Okay, Vegas fucking blows.

“You know that I find you extremely attractive,” she begins, “but I can’t date someone who says racist shit to his best friend.”

Gilfoyle really didn’t expect to take this turn.

“That’s fair,” is all he can think to say.

They’re silent a little longer, and suddenly, Gilfoyle’s no longer really hungry. The fried stuff is settling in a wobbly, uncertain way. He’s wondering what prompted this right now from Monica.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I just sprung all of this on you. But I think it’s because I’m getting really anxious about how I really like spending time with you, but I can’t be your girlfriend if you’re going to be an asshole to Dinesh.”

“Do you need me to leave?”

“No, no,” she says. “I just need you to know where I am.”

“Okay,” he says. “Noted.”

They now are just sitting in the hot tub, full of a new kind of tension.

“It’s not that I make fun of Dinesh because of him being Pakistani. I’ve always made fun of everyone for their identities. I didn’t think it truly mattered. We are just all people and we all are flawed.”

“That’s not an excuse, Gilfoyle, that’s really—”

“I know,” he answers sharply. “I know.”

Monica nods, but stays silent. Gilfoyle takes another breath. 

“I have a lot to work through. I really don’t feel like starting in on it now, but LaVeyan Satanism, rejection of authority, and upending social norms are my code. It’s a code I’ve had for years and it’s hard to shrug off.”

He’s silent a little longer. 

“But I know that I really like you. I find you interesting, which is a rarity for me. I think you’re beautiful, you’re opinionated, and I think I want to be monogamous with you. Still, there’s a lot of shit on my side. I don’t think I can go through it all, not yet.”

Monica nods again, the worried look on her face easing a little bit. 

“You don’t owe me anything,” she says softly, and rubs his shoulder lightly, “but thank you for listening.”

There’s a lot of silence followed by Monica continuing to rub his shoulder. 

“I also hate being all sentimental and shit,” he says. “Could we continue what we’ve been doing?”

“Are you asking for just sex?”

“I know I like it, I know you like it.”

“Oh, you know?”

“I’m not sure of much, Monica,” he says, “but of this, I’m certain.”

“Wow, cocky.”

“Yes.”

***

Monica feels a little conflicted about kissing Gilfoyle right then. She usually hates it when guys are cocky, but he’s not wrong. She also feels very odd by picking now to bring up what their relationship is and what it really could be. 

Still, it’s not any different than what she’s been doing for the past two months. She knew who he was then, and he’s no different. The fact that he was willing to be open just now. It might be a good sign.

Time to dive in.

She had the presence of mind to put the big hotel towels near the hot tub, because she was planning on a very intense seduction. She pulls away from Gilfoyle who is currently playing with her bikini ties and dunks herself underwater before reemerging and smoothly pulling off her top. Gilfoyle’s eyes bulge a little as she straddles him and smashes her mouth into his so hard that their teeth clank.

He grabs her arms and pulls her even closer as she grinds against him in the hot water. He begins kneading her breasts and she moans into his mouth. 

Monica makes a decision and then pushes off of his lap and clambers over the side. Gilfoyle starts to stand up, but she holds up a hand and makes him stay. She drops her bottoms and Gilfoyle starts fumbling for his own. She dries off and then arranges herself on the bed.

“Now,” she says imperiously.

Gilfoyle practically trips out of his swim trunks. Their coupling is urgent, damp, and incredible. They definitely have a lot to work through, but they’re going to get there, she’s sure of it.


	17. Planning

Gilfoyle wakes up at 7am the next morning, which is unusual, because he usually stays up until 7 or beyond, but after sex, Monica told him to go to bed. After a sleepy shower, he fell into bed and asleep at 10pm. His body is more used to sleeping in fits and starts after years of being on the start-up grind, a habit that’s still woefully part of his body clock. 

The panel isn’t until 3pm and he really doesn’t know what to do in the morning in Las Vegas, except futz around his stupidly huge hotel room. He puts on his regulation furry hotel robe and flips on the matching slippers, He decides to order room service. Even though he ate his weight and then some in fried food last night, he could go for some French toast and eggs. He orders enough for Monica, too.

While he’s waiting for the smorgasbord, he checks on the system for Pied Piper, but there’s nothing to do there. He begrudgingly looks over the notes for his panel today. He’s really not looking forward to the presentation, and pores over the notes, wondering if it would make more sense to try and escape now. But Monica would kill him, and he doesn’t really want that. She knows where he lives and works, not to mention the sex.

There’s a knock on the door and he lets in a porter who has a whole platter of food. He pulls out his phone to contact Monica.

***

[Gilfoyle] 8:13am: Breakfast is ready.

[Gilfoyle] 8:16am: There’s a fuck load of French toast.

[Gilfoyle] 8:17am: And I will eat it all if you don’t wake up.

Monica wakes to her phone buzzing before her alarm. She sees the series of breakfast-related texts from Gilfoyle and smiles. 

[Gilfoyle] 8:20am: I’ve eaten over half a fuck ton of French toast.

Well, he’s nervous. It’s far too early for him to be awake, even though she made him go to bed really early. He also usually eats just his regular cereal, so the fuck load of French toast sounds like a cry for help. Her grumbling stomach thinks she can help.

When she wanders into the room, Gilfoyle, clad in his hotel robe, has a plate piled high with eggs, bacon, and a lot of ketchup and is walking back and forth and eating. He looks pained, but fortunately there are no dark circles under her eyes. 

“Do you have any cigarettes?” he asks her without making eye contact.

“We can’t smoke in here,” she says, “there’s a huge fine that I don’t think Pied Piper could handle.”

“Can we go somewhere?”

“Let’s hold off on that for a moment,” she says calmly, pulling the plate out from his hands. “Take a seat. What’s going on?”

“What am I supposed to say at the panel?”

They go through the whole panel discussion, which is essentially a semi-detailed explanation of what Pied Pipers five-year plan without giving away any proprietary information. It’s for the business folks and some tech people, but there’s really nothing beyond their marketing plan to discuss. Essentially, Richard wants them to show their longevity as a company and show the success of their new internet. He says he’d be there, but he has a lot of in-person meetings in town. Gilfoyle also suspects that his vomiting habit is fairly off-putting. 

“I’ll be there if for talking to the business-facing folks, and you’re there for the tech people. We’ve practiced this over a dozen times.” 

“I really hate people.”

“I know,” she says soothingly, “I do, too. It’s years of Catholicism and self-loathing.”

Gilfoyle picks up his plate and chews menacingly on a piece of bacon.

“And afterwards,” Monica says, in what she hopes is a seductive voice, “we can go somewhere to smoke and eat away from people.”

“Is that a promise?”

“You’re goddamn right, it is,” she states in a mock solemn tone, and sticks out a hand for shaking.

Gilfoyle just stares at it. 

“We also have most of a day off tomorrow.”

Gilfoyle looks at her eyes and raises his eyebrows. Monica knows that this means he’s at least somewhat intrigued. She leans over to give him a gentle kiss. Things begin escalating, and there’s something nice about sex while wearing matching fuzzy robes.

***

Gilfoyle really can’t believe they survived the panel and came out of it looking fairly smooth. There were three other panelists from different businesses in the tech world, including one that was actually taking on VR in a way that blows the Kenan Feldspar tech out of its own ass. Monica found the CTO after the presentation to hand over her card and get his. 

Now, they’re walking the floor with a man who looks a little bit like Richard and Jared had an even lankier child and named him Alex Fisher. And Alex is actually pretty good with words, in public or not. Gilfoyle’s also a little worried that he’s got some game, because he keeps looking at Monica in a way that’s both friendly and a little flirtatious. Monica is either just polite or she doesn’t notice any of the flirtation, but she’s still listening, and he feels pretty good about the situation. 

“Can I offer you both a drink later?” he asks.

“We have some other meetings to attend,” says Monica, “but we’ll be in touch.”

Gilfoyle doesn’t remember any other meetings, but does know that they’re going to do something great.

Alex wander off in his 6-foot-plus frame and Monica lets out a sigh.

“Okay, if that tech wasn’t spectacular, I would have come very close to kneeing him in the balls.”

The pair of them meander back to her hotel room. Monica has a quizzical look on her face as they near the window.

“I have to say,” she says slowly, “this view is absolutely gorgeous.”

“It’s because you’re far away from the stench of tequila and failure,” Gilfoyle intones.

“Want to see it up close at a show?”


	18. Tricycle

The rest of the Vegas trip is a surprising amount of fun. Gilfoyle has to admit that seeing Cirque du Soleil was actually a really good idea. The one they see has a burlesque feel to it, and Gilfoyle now feels like he’s been missing out on this show. Being Canadian, he’s seen Cirque, but he categorically refused to enjoy it earlier in his life. They replicate their success at the second panel and celebrate by going out for a nice dinner where Gilfoyle drinks copious amounts of really good beer that night. They also venture to the Venice-inspired pool in the gigantic lobby one night. 

He’s almost disappointed to go back home but is fairly excited to go up to Portland and Seattle in a couple of weeks. Until Jared calls them into his office.

“We’re going to add onto the success of your show,” he says, a very pained smile on his face, “and we’re going to add Becky onto your team.”

“Becky?” Gilfoyle says, so much derision coating his words.

“What’s the reason for this change?” asks Monica, pointedly. She’s mad, since her head is cocked to one side. Gilfoyle doesn’t envy Jared right now.

“We just need more boots on the ground.”

“What is this, a fucking military coup?” Monica asks.

“Well, I just think it would free Gilfoyle up, and he might not even need to—”

“Wait, am I out of the travel team?”

“No, no,” Jared stresses, “I just believe that in case we need your help in an emergency capacity, we can call you back to Palo Alto.”

“What?” Monica intones, her voice high-pitched. Jared’s about to get verbally assassinated.

“I understand that you’ve been working hard on this, but it’s what’s best for the company.”

“Fuck you, Jared,” she says. Gilfoyle is really proud of Monica for this, and not a little surprised at her aggressive support of him. Yes, Jared knows about them, but Monica is livid at the thought of him not being there.

“So, I’m going,” Gilfoyle says, “but maybe not for the whole trip.”

“Correct,” Jared nods.

The wan smile and watery eyes are so obscenely sweet and Gilfoyle hates Jared. 

“I thought you weren’t excited about going on these trips,” Jared says softly. “Am I taking it that your relationship is going well?”

Monica’s cheeks are turning red, but not from embarrassment.

“What gives you the audacity to ask us this question?”

“I’m just excited about this relationship, no harm—”

“Stop,” Monica says, and puts up a hand. “We’ll go with Becky, but if this is a cheap ploy to get us to share our relationship with the whole office, we’re going to have a more serious discussion.”

***

Monica doesn’t dislike Becky, but she’s pretty sure Becky finds her irritating. It’s also really fun to have her sitting in between her and Gilfoyle after having turned their strange little work trip into something of a vacation in Las Vegas. Now, it’s purely work. What the hell is Jared’s plan? 

Again, they’re in a town car on the way to the SF airport, but Becky has her laptop out, her headphones on, and is furiously writing code. Gilfoyle looks over and points to something, but Becky shrugs away from him. 

“We’re nearly at the airport,” Monica says softly, “might as well get ready.”

The next few hours are excruciating. Security is slowed down, because it turns out that Becky has three laptops in her carry-on, and she has to smooth over the uncomfortable conversation with the agent who tries to inspect them further. Luckily, Monica thought to bring business cards.

Since there are three of them traveling, they’ve been put in the weird economy class with some extra leg room, meaning they’re able to move a little. Becky snags the window seat and sleeps on Monica’s shoulder the whole trip. When they land and get their next town car for the Seattle hotel, Becky again takes out her laptop. 

The three of them are in nice rooms, but not quite as nice as the first rooms in Vegas. It’s like Jared is underlining that the honeymoon is over. And of course, Becky’s room is in the middle. They do the same patterns, taking a walk-through of the panel event space and the entire convention floor, where they set Becky up at the table. 

“This afternoon, I think we can grab a conference room, and all practice our spiel,” she tells them, “and we can get a nice kick-off dinner.”

Becky gets a little tipsy at dinner and keeps taking potshots at how harsh of a boss Gilfoyle is.

“I don’t even know how Dinesh hasn’t shoved you down the stairs, yet, Gilf,” she says. Monica feels a shot of irritation at the nickname.

Gilfoyle just chuckles and takes a large draw on his beer. 

“He’s more scared of me.”

“You’re both dicks,” she says, shrugging, “but at least Dinesh is kind of sweet occasionally.”

Monica does smile at that, because she knows that Gilfoyle can also be fairly sweet, but only with her. She feels a little bit of the weight of their conversation in the first night of the hot tub. She’s a little disappointed that there’s no hot tub in this hotel, just a boutique pool. She still has brought a bathing suit, but it’s more modest, now that there’s company.

They’re going to have to be a lot more careful with Becky in between their rooms. Jared truly sucks for this.

Turns out, though she can be very particular, obsessed with her computer, and abrasive, she is a coder, and she’s fairly interesting. She’s been obsessed with tech since high school, where she ran the computer lab in the library and rewired all of the computers to run more effectively. She began college with a degree in CS and a minor in gender studies (she notices that Gilfoyle’s eyes widen at this) and has been working on the backend of different start-ups while also working on moving the percentage of women in tech up through awareness and committee work. She runs a Women in Tech group, which has just opened its membership to nonbinary people as well. 

Monica keeps looking at Gilfoyle through her explanation and sees his expression unchanged. She really hopes that Gilfoyle doesn’t fuck this all up by saying something insensitive and weird. He does nod a couple of times, and Monica feels something similar to pride.

***

When they’re done with their dinner, Becky tells them that she’s about to head up for an early night. “Gotta work on some fanfiction,” she tipsily tells them. 

They go up the hotel elevator and watch Becky walk into her room, humming something softly to herself.

Monica beckons to him, and he walks over and into her room. He’s a little surprised at how quickly she grabs him and shoves him towards the bed, where they have a very aggressive and athletic round of sex which leaves Gilfoyle feeling old and winded.

“Any reason for that?” he asks.

“I just couldn’t wait to be alone with you. Today has been the longest day ever.”

“Becky isn’t the worst,” he says.

She gives such a quizzical look.

“Really?”

“Yeah, why?” he asks, honestly confused, “Are you jealous?”

“No, just surprised,” Monica says, sliding off the bed, and grabbing the hotel robes. “She’s a dedicated feminist.”

Her eyebrows are raised in challenge.

“Yes, and a dedicated coder,” says Gilfoyle, “that’s what matters to me.”

“Oh,” she says, “feminists don’t bother you?”

“No particular label bothers me,” he says, “just the idea of labels.”

More and more layers of Gilfoyle are becoming clear, but this is a fairly basic one. Monica isn’t upset, though. Just confused. 

“Why is your work relationship with her so abrasive?”

“I’m abrasive with everyone, Monica, in case that was news to you.”

“Not to me.”

He doesn’t say anything but slouches off to the bathroom. Monica sits on the bed for long minutes, playing with the tails of her robe sash, thinking about how Gilfoyle is completely wrong for her, but she thinks that she’s fallen for him anyway.


	19. Becky

Becky turns out to be incredibly charismatic, informative, and overall excellent at the panel. She even manages to rope in her aptly, if obviously, named Women in Tech group to resounding applause from different corners of the room. Monica barely has to speak, and Gilfoyle manages to keep is deadpan responses to Becky respectful for such a large audience. 

They’re all buzzing by the time they get to the show floor where Becky sets up shop for the remaining two hours of the day. They make a plan to meet in the hotel lobby at 7 and go to the more touristy areas of town.

“I hope I see a naked cyclist,” she says excitedly. “I’m also ready to eat an entire cow or two.”

Becky’s buzzing energy is in naked contrast to Gilfoyle’s stoic, if pleased stance. He has a slight smile on his lips, and he hasn’t crossed his arms once since leaving the panel. Monica conjectures that if he were a dog, he’d be wagging his tail excitedly. 

A familiar lanky body walks up to them. It’s their friend Alex from the Vegas show, and Monica immediately regrets ever speaking to the douchebag. Sure, he has fantastic tech, but she would prefer to be pantsed right now. He was sickly sweet with charm at the last time, and she knows that he’d set Gilfoyle’s hackles up. If they just created a link with a second Kenan Feldspar, she was going to kick her own ass.

“Monica, Gilford, great to see you both,” he says. “Who’s your delightful colleague?”

Becky eye rolls so fast that Monica could hug her. 

“Delightful?” she asks, staring at Alex. “I know that you have some popular gimmicky tech, dude, but drop the sexism immediately.”

“Oh, did I push your button, ma’am?”

***

Gilfoyle looks between matching facial expressions on Monica and Becky’s faces, and it’s only the years of practiced apathy that makes it so he isn’t rolling his eyes as well. Alex is a textbook asshole. 

“Ma’am?” Becky asks coolly. Gilfoyle is familiar with this tone. It’s one he’s used a few times.

Hopefully Alex embraces the new asshole Becky’s about to rip him.

“My name is Becky, I’m one of the highest-ranking tech officers at Pied Piper, and I know my worth. If you have a question about the company for which I work, please ask. If you ask about figurative buttons or purposefully use the incorrect name to my boss, you can walk down that very long hallway. I know who you are, and I have very little respect for one dimensional tech. I have no buttons for you to push.”

Alex’s face doesn’t budge an inch, but his smile only resides on his lips. His eyes are empty.

“I’m sorry, Becky,” he says. “That was careless of me.”

“Sure was,” she says, and returns to her code writer.

“Do you need anything from Pied Piper?” Monica asks in an equally cool tone. 

“I just wanted to see if I could wrangle you all for a drink later. You, Becky, Gilford.”

“It’s Gilfoyle,” he cuts in. “And we have plans.”

“I really would enjoy discussing my tech with you, I’m in the market for—”

“We have plans,” Monica interrupts. “I have your information. I’ll call you for a business meeting later this week.”

“Wonderful,” Alex says, pasting the fake smile back on. It fell when Gilfoyle had spoken to him. “I’ll speak with you soon.”

He scurries off, and Gilfoyle watches as he walks up to another woman at another booth. The exhaustion is clear in her body language from yards away.

“That sucked,” Becky says. “I don’t like that guy. He appears on the message boards and there’s something very empty about his business model and plans.”

“I’ve heard that, too,” Gilfoyle agrees. “Are we going to meet with him.”

“We do have to think of the company, but I’m happy to push around our schedule and blow him off for a while,” Monica says. “Tonight, is about just us and our awesome panel.”

They leave Becky to it, and when they get outside of the convention center, Monica turns to him and asks if he wants to walk to the hotel.

“I know it’s about a mile, but I’m really tired of fake air conditioning and being inside.”

“Sure.”

They start winding in and out of other people on the sidewalk. Gilfoyle enjoys the overcast sky and the slight drizzle. He’s surprised that Monica wanted to walk since she’s wearing a pair of her signature heels. They come across a large crowd of folks and they cram together. That’s when she grabs his hand. He surprises himself: he doesn’t let go. He’s never been a hand holder, but hers are soft and comforting.

They talk about work and get on to discussing Seattle music.

“I mean, your whole look is very Kurt Cobain, or at least Nirvana-adjacent.”

“I don’t seem to remember Cobain having a beard or any Satanist imagery tattooed on his skin.”

“No, the plaid, Gilf.” 

The sky breaks open and a sudden downpour soaks them. They run the final two blocks to the hotel and walk briskly into the elevator. It’s then that Gilfoyle sees in the mirrored walls of the elevator that Monica’s white blouse and navy skirt are clinging to her more than ever and both of them are breathing very hard. 

He turns and looks at her, but she’s already moving towards him and grabbing him for a very solid and wet kiss. She pulls at his plaid shirt while he strokes his hands over her hips and down her back. They only stop when the doors clang open on their floor.

A figure is waiting there, holding a white towel and clad in a dark blue bathing suit. It’s not until she talks that he realizes: it’s Becky.  
“Shit, son!”


	20. Dinner

Gilfoyle still has his hands around Monica’s waist, but he’s staring at Becky. He quickly drops his hands, as if that’s going to detract from the way Becky is also staring at the pair of them. Her mouth is actually open, her curly red hair up in a knot on top of her head. She’s wearing a modest swimsuit with a ruffle on the top. Never took Becky as someone who enjoys ruffles…

“Hi, Becky,” Monica says, futzing with her hair and smoothing her shirt down to her skirt. She’s very cute and completely unconvincing. 

“Monica…” 

“We’re dating,” Gilfoyle hears himself saying.

“Alright, Gilford,” she says, snark from the new and horrible nickname.

“How did you get back her so quickly?” Monica muses. “We left before you.”

“We did walk,” says Gilfoyle. 

“Ah,” Becky nods. “How long have you—Sorry. That’s not necessary of me to ask.”

“Are you still on for dinner at eight?” Monica says. She seems to try to come across as relaxed, but it’s just very uncomfortable, and honestly, endaring.

“Yeah, of course, sure,” Becky answers, as the doors begin to close. Gilfoyle throws a hand in between them to stop them.

“Okay,” Becky breathes in a high-pitched voice, “see you in a couple of hours.” 

She slides in and Monica and Gilfoyle slide out. Wordlessly, they end up in his room.

“Dinner will be interesting, Gilford.”

***

They decide to go separately to the restaurant. Monica arrives to a table with just Becky, and sucks in a deep breath. 

“Hi,” Becky says, a wan smile painting her face.

“Hi, Becky,” she answers, hoping her smile is less pained and awkward.

Their silence is deafening and then—  
“I won’t tell anyone about you and Gilfoyle, I really respect you both, and I can kind of tell that you like each other, and he’s kind of an ass, but he’s a great boss, and I really like you as a woman in a unique role in tech—”

“Whoa, whoa,” says Monica, “I understand where you’re coming from, and I appreciate it, but it’s okay.”

She reaches out and places her hand on top of Becky’s hand.

“I’m sorry we made you feel uncomfortable. That’s not okay”

“It’s alright,” Becky answers, “You’re consenting adults and you work on the same level of Pied Piper. I was just really surprised on my way to the pool—”

“Yeah, that was a little indecent. Again, I’m sorry.”

Becky’s eyes move behind Monica’s head and her eyes widen.

“Damn.”

Monica turns to see a very dressed up Gilfoyle wandering into the restaurant. He literally has just put on a jacket over a buttoned-up shirt and his wet hair is slicked back into a ponytail, but it looks great. He looks really confident.

“Damn,” Monica echoes.

Gilfoyle comes over and says a curt hello, rubbing Monica’s back lightly, before settling in. He looks uncomfortable, and Monica realizes that Becky is staring at him. And smiling. It’s really very funny. 

“Hi, Gilford,” Becky says, snickering lightly.

“Outstanding,” is all he replies.

“Well, today was good,” Monica segues into with all the grace of a cow driving a forklift down an elevator shaft. “Our panel was excellent, thanks to you, Becky.”

“It wasn’t terrible,” agrees Gilfoyle.

They awkwardly discuss the merits of their tech until their drinks arrive, where the conversation shifts to dating, and Monica finds herself sharing a lot more than she bargained for with Becky. Gilfoyle mostly just nods here and there, but he actually starts talking, too. The topic has mostly shifted away from their sort of relationship, but they’re actually enjoying a conversation about different food.

“Do you prefer maple syrup or poutine?” Becky says, chortling and a little drunk. 

They’ve split a full bottle of wine and started with cocktails.

“I eat neither food,” Gilfoyle says. “Are you asking me this for a particular reason, or because I’m Canadian?”

“That’s the particular reason.”

They go from there, chuckling over their appetizers, entrees, and then decide to get dessert and coffee.

“So,” Becky says, taking a sip of her coffee, “I’m going to ask a question, but you guys don’t have to answer. Are you dating?”

“Yes,” Gilfoyle answers before Monica can. “We are. But not everyone knows.”

Monica smiles at that. They will need to have a really involved conversation about it later, but now it feels good to have it out in the open.


	21. Official

“So, we’re a couple?” Monica asks.

She and Gilfoyle are back in her hotel room (his is essentially corporate waste and holding room for his gross socks – he has very sweaty feet) and on the bed. They’ve ordered a room service bottle of wine and are watching something stupid on TV. It’s a weird 1990s sitcom that she can’t place.

Gilfoyle is sitting with his legs crossed after having taken off his jacket and shoes. He has left his hair tied up, because he knows that she appreciates it. Which is really a very weak word for her. He looks a lot younger than he usually does.

“I’m sorry, I should have talked to you beforehand.:

“I get it, I just don’t want to pressure you—”

“You’re not.”

Gilf’s voice has dropped a little bit and he’s staring at her very purposefully. She reaches for the remote and turns off the TV.

“I said I like you all those weeks ago,” he says. “and I still like you.”

The pause is deafening. 

“I really like you, Monica, and I did say that we were dating without your permission, but I would like to date you, if possible. I can change my answer to Monica. It’s up to you.”

Monica feels a little surprise, even though she’s been looking forward to this exact conversation for weeks. 

“I want to.”

Gilfoyle visible loosens, his shoulders unhunching. She leans over and gives him a light kiss.

“I also think we need to talk to Richard,” she says, “and the rest of the office.”

“Dinesh might know,” Gilfoyle says, his tone quiet and his eyes downcast.

“You told Dinesh?!”

“This is going to be sound very, very stupid, and it is. I really hate that I was trying to text you to come over and something about work.”

“And you texted Dinesh instead?” Monica smiles, “It happens to all of us.”

“That’s not the worst part,” Gilfoyle says, staring a hole into the comforter. “I texted him four times.”

Three Weeks Earlier

The next show was coming up in the next couple of weeks, but Monica had been ignoring him at work. He knew it was deliberate, because they had been tempted to use a service closet as a hotel room before 11am one particularly slow Tuesday. Still, Gilfoyle honestly misses her.

[Gilfoyle]: 8:46pm: Want to watch more Cheers?

[Gilfoyle]: 8:53pm: I like the tiny and useless post officer.

[Gilfoyle]: 8:56pm: I can also bring over your shoes. I almost brought them today, but that would have been weird.

[Gilfoyle]: 9:01pm: I also have beer.

Dinesh wanders into his room. 

“Why the fuck do you have my shoes?” he begins. “I’m also literally next fucking door.”

“I don’t have your fucking shoes.”

“You literally just told me that you have my shoes.”

“No, I fucking didn’t. I’ve been here the entire fucking time.”

“Oh, so now you don’t know how phones fucking work, you fucking prick?”

Phone? What the hell? Gilf looks down at his phone, looking for anything from Monica. He goes to his text app and scrolls through hers. The last text sent is from her. But he just sent.

Oh, fuck.

He clicks over to Dinesh’s messages and there they are. The four texts were sent to fucking Dinesh Chugtai.

“Gilfoyle?” Dinesh says loudly. “What the fuck? Why the fuck were you texting me?”

“I wasn’t,” he says. “I opened the wrong messages and was trying to send them to someone else.”

“You watch Cheers with someone else? At the office? Why do you have their shoes? Do you have Jared’s shoes?”

Dinesh walks over to the closet and starts peering through his shoe rack (he’s cluttered but not a total slob) and then Dinesh sees—

“Why do you have heels?” he asks, very slowly putting the pieces together. “The only person at work who wears fancy—” 

Dinesh’s mouth actually drops open and he points at Gilfoyle.

“You and Monica?” he says loudly. “She left her shoes in your room! Are you and Monica… together?”

Back in a Seattle Hotel Room

“So what did you do?” Monica asks and snorts with laughter over her glass of wine.

“I ended up telling him,” he says, “and it felt pretty good. I also had to give him $500 so he wouldn’t tell the rest of the office and make it impossible for us to seem credible before we did the HR route. If we chose to do that.”

Monica is smiling so much right now.

“I can’t believe you paid Dinesh half a grand to shut him up.”

“Yeah, he really won that one.”

Monica loses it. She places her wine down carefully and doubles over, clutching her stomach with one arm and bracing herself against the bed. 

“I can’t wait to talk to Dinesh all about this,” she says, just to see the look of Gilfoyle’s face.

“Me, neither,” he says, before slinging back the rest of the contents of his glass.


	22. Doing

The next day, Gilfoyle, Monica, and Becky walk together to the convention center. It’s a strangely sunny day for the Northwest. As they head inside, they run across their absolute favorite person ever, Alex. Alex wants to be, as he puts it, “of any assistance if necessary,” before they go into the panel. Becky whirls around with her arms akimbo and fury dancing in her eyes.

“We’ve been here for two days, we can read a map, and we’ve presented from the same goddamn stage for this panel, so please leave immediately,”

“I was only trying to help—”

“Help is great when you’re asking for it,” snaps Monica. 

Gilfoyle knows that she hasn’t slept much because their discussion and happiness of making their coupledom official caused a couple of celebrations. Watching her verbally slap Alex causes his tired body to react strongly. She glares at Alex.

This panel is going to take forever. 

Gilfoyle struggles to keep up with the women as they pointedly brush past Alex. There’s an intense amount of clacking from her heels and slapping of Becky’s sneakers and he makes sure to ‘accidentally’ taps Alex’s shoulder as they get to the room.

There’s a waiting area backstage where they wait. Monica’s nervous energy is loud, with her crossed arms and tapping fingers. She looks around a lot and bites her lip. Becky, conversely, has pulled herself into a weirdly calm state and is staring at the entrance to the panel.

Of course, the show organizers have placed Becky next to Alex. Monica has decided to sit in a VIP spot near the front of the audience, and Gilfoyle lets Becky take over. She does pass some words to him a couple of times.

The panel goes just as well as the first, but then, as they’re leaving, Alex comes up to Gilfoyle and Becky. 

“I didn’t know you were undertaking so many new strides in your company,” he starts without any preamble, “again, I would be delighted to join forces—”

Becky flicks a business card at him and walks off without another word. Gilfoyle looks back and makes sure that he glares directly at Alex before turning. Alex doesn’t notice, because he’s looking in a weirdly longing and intense way at Becky.

Gilfoyle catches up to Becky.

“I need a fucking drink,” she mutters, “and I’m taking you and Monica with me to a bar.”

“Okay, what if we’re busy?”

“In Seattle on a work trip?”

“I know that you’re having fun with Monica, but I really fucking need to go out and I’m not doing it alone.”

“Thanks for asking.”

“It’s a request, not an invitation.”

“I’m your boss.”

“And I get that,” she says, stopping and turning to look at him, “but I really need this. Meet you outside the elevators at 6:30. We’ll also grab dinner before the bar.”

She marches off to go to the show floor as Monica rounds the corner.

“See you at 6:30, elevators,” Becky tells her, still marching through the convention.

“Okay…?”

Monica meets up with him, a quizzical look on her face. She opens her mouth a couple of times to speak.

“Do you remember making a plan for tonight.”

“No. But Becky did.”

“What if we had plans?”

“I was told that that doesn’t have any bearing.”

“Did you run across anyone after—”

“Alex has Becky’s business card, yes.”

They slowly walk to the exit, where they again decide to walk back to the hotel.   
***

Monica really enjoys the fact that she has a boyfriend, even though they’re keeping it secret from all but two people. They have one more night in Seattle after their mandated dinner with Becky, so after walking back to the hotel, they have a long, delicious brunch.

“I hope you’re not one for egregious selfies, and anniversaries that celebrate three months together,” says Gilfoyle, “because I’m mostly used to just sex, computers, and food.”

“One. I don’t really do anything with social media except the occasional Tweet,” she begins. “Two. I celebrate my anniversaries, when I remember them, with sex and food.”

“I think this is going to work out.”

They suddenly are finished with brunch and it’s only three in the afternoon. They charge their meal to the room, and head into the elevator. A random man with a tech badge for the convention is standing in the elevator, which is torturous to Monica. Her skin feels too tight and she really wants to jump Gilfoyle right now. This is probably the honeymoon stage talking.

The man exits before they do, and she shoves Gilfoyle against the wall and begins kissing his neck. Her hands are braced on either side of his head, and she grinds her pelvis against his. He’s already hard, and when she feels him, she moans. Loudly.

They make it to her room very quickly, where Gilfoyle takes his turn to shove her against a wall and they stay standing while Monica makes a decision. She pushes Gilfoyle gently back and takes her time unzipping her skirt, unbuttoning her shirt, and shrugging out of her bra and underwear. Gilfoyle is actually panting and lets out a grunt when she pulls him back. She starts to lift his shirt, but he stops her by gently placing a hand on hers.

He drops to his knees and licks her. There’s something primal about how he is gripping her hip with one hand and putting a finger inside her with another. It doesn’t take too long until she feels the rumble of an orgasm begin in her spine and spread down her legs and up her torso. 

When Gilfoyle stands and gives her a small smile and she reaches for his shirt, he lightly shakes his head. 

“We’ll do that later,” he says, “I need something to look forward to after Becky’s forced night of fun.”


	23. Progress

Monica is a little overwhelmed and also excited for getting to have dinner with Becky by the time she pulls on all of her clothes and freshens up. Gilfoyle is honestly surprising her by putting her needs first and forcing off any sex until after they meet up with Becky. She knows that he has it within himself to be kind, to be loving, but he’s also an angry man, filled with self-loathing.

When she gets out of the bathroom, Gilfoyle is brushing his beard, which she hasn’t seen him do before, and she really likes this moment of intimacy. But she’s not going to make him feel weird about it, because then she’s never going to catch him at this again.

She’s dressed up a little, in a small black dress, and Gilfoyle looks smugly pleased at her look. It’s simple, but elegant, and she likes how she’s commanding a lot of his attention. He looks a little pained because of his post-dancing promise.

It’s only 5:00, so they decide to hang out in the hotel bar and text Becky that they’re changing their meeting spot. There has been a lot of drinking at this particular bar, just because of easy proximity to their hotel rooms. They order their overpriced drinks and sit cozily close under some tinkling music and low lights. They have to sit close to one another, surrounded by other tech folks, and she feels Gilfoyle’s hand rest on her knee.

***

“Maybe we should’ve stayed in the room,” Monica smirks at him and breathes into his ear. “You’re fairly handsy, Gilf.”

“I’m not handsy,” he answers, “because handsy would be more like this.”

He turns his body slightly and moves closer to her, blocking out other people’s gazes, and he snakes his hand up her skirt, resting high on her thigh. He only notices that her eyebrows raise slightly, but it makes him feel good to rattle her, but in a manner that’s causing her to push her legs apart and place a hand on his leg as well. He really loves and hates the way his pants tighten and wonders what the hell he was thinking. Then he gently pulls his hand out from under her skirt and pushes his hand off of hers.

“We still have an hour,” she says, “we can go upstairs—”

“No,” he breathes, “I can handle it.”

“Okay,” she says, and her smirk is blinding.

Dammit.

They begin talking about a lot of random crap, but not any more about sex, because Gilfoyle is definitely going to explode if they do that. They talk a little about the panel and Pied Piper, because work definitely distracts from the heavy desire for sex. They also begin talking about Dinesh, and he must be very distracted because he lets slip—

“I texted him earlier today about working on a new committee,” he says, “because he was thinking about for underrepresented staff at work, and he was gloating about being in charge of stuff. I told him about working with Becky’s group, the feminists.”

Monica looks shocked as hell.

“Yeah,” he says, “I really don’t care about it, but he was asking and he’s going to find out about it at some time.”

Monica leans over and gives him a light kiss on the cheek.

“Sure, Gilf,” she says. “because he’d find out about it anyway.”

He really doesn’t like that tone, but whatever. She can think about that whatever she likes. He still doesn’t care about pretty much anyone else. Or their identities. Shit, does he a little? Shit. He didn’t think twice about helping Dinesh. This feels weird as fuck.

Eventually, 6:30 rolls around, and Becky arrives, though it takes Gilfoyle a moment to understand it’s her. She’s wearing a navy-blue sequined dress. She’s done something with her hair and makeup and is wearing heels, which is wild. She’s even wearing contacts and her eyes look tiny.

“You look beautiful!” Monica exclaims. She sounds a little tipsy, if sincere.

“Thanks!” Becky says, as she takes a tiny flask out of her purse and takes a swig. “You both ready?”

“Yeah,” Gilfoyle says, fairly proud of his aggressively real subordinate.

Becky scoops them both up, linking her arm in each of theirs, and moving them out onto the street.

***

Monica is not surprised when a rideshare pulls up only a minute after they get outside. Becky has impeccable timing. The car wends through a few streets and they pull up to one of the classic warehouses. Becky practically scoots over her lap to get out of the rideshare. Gilfoyle looks a little intimidated and possibly pained by such a so-called normal space in this city.

“We go clubbing way more than I thought I would in my entire life,” he says before reluctantly scooting out of the car, “and I want dinner.”

“Come on, guys!” Becky waves from the doorway. “Now!”


	24. Unplanned

Monica takes this opportunity to grab Gilfoyle’s hand and pull him out of the car and lightly pull him towards the building. They’re going to lose Becky in the crowd at this rate. Gilfoyle keeps up with her. Then they go through the labyrinthine clusterfuck of waiting for a little bit, the creepy bouncer ogling both her and Becky, to a very similar scene as when they were in San Francisco. The crowd is definitely even more hipster and white than that crowd, but they’re going to have some fun, she can tell.

Somehow, Becky darts away and comes back within five minutes with three full glasses of what looks like whiskey.

“Drink up, guys,” she says. “We’re only getting started.”

They’re still standing at the edge of the dancefloor, but Monica’s beginning to believe that Becky’s special power is getting what she needs whenever she believes she needs it. She’s somehow found a high-top table.

“Before you ask, we can get a table upstairs and have food, but I say we dance first,” she demands, “and drink first, so the dancing is more fun.”

“Are you okay, Becky?” Monica asks. She is wondering where this plan has come from and why there’s so much alcohol involved.

“Yeah,” she sighs. They’re actually tucked behind a slight divider, so they can hear each other. It’s still very early in the night, but there are folks around them. “I ran into Alex again, after you guys had left to have your afternoon delight.”

Gilfoyle actually snorts at that. All of them are a few stages beyond tipsy, and approaching drunk at an alarming, if fun, pace.

“Oh, shit,” Monica says quietly. “You could have texted one of us, you’re always free to do so, Becky.”

“Yeah,” Becky says, “I get that. The problem isn’t harassment, it’s that I agreed to meet him here, and I thought I’d need backup.”

“Why the fuck are you meeting that person?” Gilfoyle asks after a very long pause. “Why would you drag us the hell out of our evening to go on a weird meet-up with that utter asshole.”

Becky has the humility to look chagrined. Gilfoyle is openly glaring at her with his arms crossed across his chest.

“You could have told—” Monica begins.

“No, because you would have shut it all down,” Becky says, “and I really needed some back-up.”

“So you faked us into coming here,” Gilfoyle says, “see you at the panel tomorrow.”

“No, Gilf, stop,” Monica says. “Let’s just hear her out.”

***

Becky looks uncharacteristically like she’s going to start crying. It’s very unsettling for Gilfoyle, and he can tell that Monica is at the crossroads of upset and embarrassed for their colleage.

“I may have agreed to do the partnership,” she says, “and to meet here to have a date.”

“Hold the fuck up,” he responds, “so we’re here for some misguided business plan as well as helping you get laid?”

“Yeah.”

Monica starts laughing. It’s a little unhinged and maniacal and Gilfoyle will admit that he’s very scared of her right now, and very uncomfortably turned on. (He’ll crush that emotion down for later.)

“Dear God, Becks,” she starts, “are you trying to get everyone fucking angry? Are you trying to lose your job?”

“No,” she says, “he showed me his demo and everything at the booth.”

“You were there maybe an hour,” Monica continues.

“Yeah, I know, but he was super convincing about his tech, and he apologized for being a dick. It was all very kind and honest and I really appreciated how he approached his apology. He offered to buy us all dinner and to actually listen.”

“So we’re all sitting in this day night club crap and going to have to listen to this man? And you couldn’t bother to tell us before we decided whether or not we wanted to join?”

Monica is practically standing by this point and is glaring at Becky. She’s leaned over a little bit and breathing a little harder so Gilfoyle has to actually tell himself to pull his eyes away from her very exposed cleavage.

“Thanks a lot, Becks.”

Monica gets up and mutters something about the bathroom and walks away in her tiny black dress and Gilfoyle is now extraordinarily turned on. Turning himself back to Becky, her defiant glare pulls him out of his musings and he glares right back at her.

“This is shitty,” he says, “and if I actually gave a fuck about the structure in our stupid corporate culture, I might be offended by insubordination.”

Becky actually rolls her eyes but does quietly spit out a humiliated apology.

“I’m really sorry,” she says, “and I won’t ambush you again. But he should be here—”

“Hello, Mr. Gilfoyle,” says an irritatingly chipper and buzzy voice. Gilfoyle has never felt his blood boil before, but there’s heat under the thin layer of his skin and he’s feeling nothing but peeved.

“It’s Gilfoyle,” he says quietly.

“Ready for some dinner in my favorite spot in the whole city?” says Alex Goddamn Fisher.

“We’re still waiting for Monica,” Becky says, having the absolute gall to smile at this idiotic and infuriating man.


	25. Potential

They’re now sitting around a round, highbacked booth. When she came out of the bathroom, she saw a very well-dressed Alex smiling at her dour boyfriend and a chagrined Becky. She would probably laugh if she didn’t feel like punching Alex Fucking Fisher in the face. Or neck. The neck is better. 

He’s led them up a huge and opulent staircase to a hidden away restaurant where the music is a lot more muted. He keeps letting Becky and Monica go ahead of him with a very patronizing hand gesture each time. Alex’s mouth seems tattooed to his handsome face. It’s irritating.

When they sit, a waiter comes over immediately, and Alex makes a pronouncement.

“As you’re all my guests, I plan to treat you all,” he begins. “I’m so excited to do some work with all of you and to have a possibility of a partnership, but I also like to have fun when I’m entertaining.”

There are about four hundred boundaries that he’s catapulting over, and when he orders a three figure bottle of champagne, Monica tries cutting him off. 

“I insist,” he says quietly. 

“I have something to admit,” says Becky.

Gilfoyle opens his mouth, but Monica grips his thigh. Hard.

“I have to tell you that I used to date Alex,” she says, “but we made a pact to not tell anyone, which is why I got mad that I saw him, because he hadn’t told me that he’d be at the show.”

Monica is slack-jawed and pissed.

“So, what the fuck are we doing now?” she asks forcefully. “This is the third or fourth lie you’ve told us in the past hour.”

“His tech is great,” she says.

“I’ve brought it with me,” he says.

Monica looks at Gilfoyle who’s stony-faced but his brown eyes are wide and she can tell that he’s overwhelmed just from this tiny piece of body language.

“You’ll excuse us a moment.”

For the second time that night, Monica pulls her partner’s arm and takes him to a space behind a pillar. 

“So, what the fuck should we do?”

***

Gilfoyle has no idea what the fuck they should do. He hates being taken advantage of in any way, but it’s really something to be ambushed by a fucking colleague. With an ex of hers. 

“I have no fucking idea.”

“Since he has his shit with him, should we look at it? We don’t have to do shit with it. And if it’s good, we could use some more business.”

“You’re actually considering looking at it?”

“If Becky says it’s good, she’s a talented person. We didn’t hire her for nothing.”

“She also brought a douchebag with her to a valuable night out. Or in.”

“Again, he’s already, and we can get him to buy us expensive food.”

Gilfoyle actually likes this part of the idea. He wouldn’t mind having some steak and not having to pay for it. He’s going to wrangle as many drinks and the best shit on the menu off of this shithead.

“You make a strong point.”

They strategize: they’re stuck here, so might as well make the best of it. They’ll get a free meal and free drinks, and they’ll sap him of some of his money in the business, too, if necessary. They decide that they’re not going to make any rash decisions about the tech, or even want to take it with them, but it can’t hurt. At this point, they have all of the cards. They’re going to figure out how to deal with Becky at a later point of time.

“Okay,” Monica begins as they arrive back at the table. “You can show us. You have from now until the food comes.”

Becky sighs a relief and Alex sets up his computer. They watch a very detailed presentation and then Alex passes them VR headsets. They put them on, and Monica nearly gasps. 

They have a new problem: Alex is a dick, Becky lied through her teeth multiple times, they’re at a douchey restaurant-club, and the worst part is that the technology is really good.


	26. Mad

Alex is very convincing. It’s honestly pretty unsettling, just like a lot of things about him. Monica is honestly over the moon about the goddamn VR but really hates all of the deceit and the lying. Becky may have redeemed herself a little bit, but there is going to be a long conversation about boundaries and telling the truth. Anything further than this, if she tries to pull any more stunts, and she’s going to have to force Richard to fucking fire her. She’s over this bullshit, but goddamn, the tech is so good. 

She’s also pretty sure that Gilfoyle isn’t prepared for whatever energy is going to fly his way later tonight. They’re going to have sex and it’s going to be incredible. She’s all pent up and angry and it’s not great, but it’s also fantastic. 

Alex tells them that he’s going to go stow his equipment, whatever that means, and Becky looks anxious as he walks away. They’re now eating dessert and Gilfoyle ordered brandy and she’d followed suit, so it’s the only thing that’s keeping her shattered calm just a little normal.

“So, did you like the tech?” Becky asks in a quieter voice, her shoulders hunched and eyes wide. “I really didn’t do this in a professional way—”

“You got that right, Becks,” Monica cuts her off. “You’re lucky that the tech is good, but you’ve highjacked our whole evening.”

***

Gilfoyle really wishes that they’d had sex before they left for the evening. Why has he closed the door on his own dick? Monica angry is a new level of hot, but he has to keep to the matter at hand.

“I’m incredibly sorry,” says Becky. “I just didn’t know how to approach this any other way.”

“You’re talking in a goddamn spiral,” Monica starts, pointing at Becky. “And we’re going to discuss this with Richard when we get back to Palo Alto. I will fight for you because you know good tech, but you’ll be lucky if you get to travel with us ever again.”

Becky nods and looks upset. Good. He’s not sure how long she’s going to last at Pied Piper, except for the fucking fantastic VR.

“We’re going now,” Monica says, “and you can tell Alex we’ll be in touch. See you tomorrow.” 

She gets up and slides out of the booth, and Gilfoyle gets the message to start following her before he gets pulled yet again. 

They make it downstairs, and the dinner must have been the hours long it felt, because there are more people than he was expecting on the dance floor and she walks to behind a wooden pillar and shoves him against it. She begins kissing him in the shadow and is gripping his hips and pushing herself against him. He grabs her back, wrapping his hands around her waist and squeezing because if he doesn’t hold on, he’s pretty sure that he’s going to fall over.

It feels like they’re swimming from the drowning bass of the music and the multiple drinks that are flooding his veins. He’s very hard and sweaty and wants to leave for the hotel now, so now he’s pulling her towards the door. 

“Should we leave Becky here?” she asks as they’re waiting for the cab as Gilfoyle is trying to get himself all the way together. 

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” she asks and threads her fingers through hers.

“Yes,” he says, “she’s on a fucking date that she forgot to tell us about.”

“Okay.”

Their taxi pulls up and not a moment too soon. They’re still holding hands, but Gilfoyle is pretty sure that he’s going to combust if they keep hitting every goddamn red light. The drive is probably short, but it feels longer than he could possibly imagine. When they get out they get into the elevator. 

He wants to kill the lady in her forties in the elevator. She’s accidentally pushed two buttons that aren’t her floor and keeps humming and muttering to herself. She smiles as she gets off the elevator. When the doors finally close, Monica leaps on top of him, and he’s so surprised and into it simultaneously, that he lifts her up with her legs locked around his waist. 

She smells so good, like sweat and some very light perfume, and he ventures a hand up her thigh. She’s wearing nothing underneath her dress. He bites her neck lightly and feels rather than hears her moan. 

They come so close to missing their floor, but they get to their room just in time. He manages to carry her into his room, under the surprised look of an older teen in their hallway – that he manages to make awkward eye contact with. 

When the door closes, Monica braces one had against the door and pulls a condom out from her bra. He shrugs his pants and boxers down slightly before she positions herself above him and sinks down on top of him. She comes very quickly and they sink down to the floor. She’s atop him and a strap of her dress has come down, a breast completely exposed. Her mouth is open and eyes are glassy. She looks so relaxed and so sexy. 

He comes almost immediately afterwards. 

“We just had standing sex,” she says, “followed by floor sex.”

“Yes.”

“I loved it.”

“Can’t say I hated any of it.”

Monica swats his arm, but he manages to grab her hand and reach it up for a kiss on her palm. 

“What now?” she asks.

“Give me fifteen to twenty minutes.”


	27. Arguments

“I’m going to have to have you go over all of this one more time,” Richard says.

He’s slouched over the desk, his head in his heads, heels of his hands rubbing his eyes. Jared has a hand on his shoulder in a way that’s barely concealing that it’s not a only a professional relationship. Becky, Gilfoyle, and Monica are gathered into his office and Becky is sitting directly across from their CEO. She looks upset and humiliated, and Gilfoyle feels pretty fucking vindicated about it all. 

“You’re telling me that you had a relationship with Alex?” he says, his face screwing up with irritation and frustration.

Becky goes over the whole situation again, from lying about who Alex was, to a rundown of the tech along with an example this time, and how she threw Gilfoyle and Monica into the mix without their knowledge. 

She finishes and there’s only silence. Richard’s lips are pressed in a thin line so that they’re white. When he speaks, it’s abrupt.

“I don’t see any reason to fire you,” he starts, to Becky’s relieved breath, “but if anything like this happens again, you’ll be out of this company without a recommendation.”

Becky is openly crying, and Gilfoyle feels a little vindicated.

“You can go back to your desk. Don’t expect anything special for a while. You’re on quality assurance.”

Becky runs out of the room and heads straight to out of the door, shoulders hunched.

“What the fuck, guys?’ Richard says. “Is she spying for Fisher?”

“From what I can gather about it all, it’s a legitimate business deal,” says Monica. “So I don’t think we have anything to worry about in that realm.”

“With the schedule, Dinesh is actually able to travel with you next week to New York.”

“Wait, New York?” Gilfoyle says. “Why the fuck are we going to New York? And why the fuck are we going with Dinesh?”

“You didn’t tell them?” Richard asks Jared.

Monica does know about this trip, but she had no idea Gilfoyle was in the dark. They’ve been a little distracted since the trip.

“I did!” Jared says, his voice leaping up to a new octave. 

“Before we move further,” Monica says, “there’s something I have to tell you Richard, officially.”

Richard looks at her like he can’t believe that there’s going to be yet another bomb dropped on him on top of the Becky debacle.

“Gilfoyle and I are together,” she says simply. “And we’re letting you know, openly, so we’re above board on the human resources side of the matter. We filed the pertinent paperwork and let Jared know.”

Richard looks nothing but confused. And maybe irritated.

“What the fuck?”

***

Gilfoyle isn’t too surprised that Richard is taking about as well to this as he does to any other interpersonal surprise.

“For how fucking long? Jared, you knew about this?!”

“I figured it out and had a good discussion with Gilf,” he says soothingly, his hands now cupping each of Richard’s shoulders. 

The original five are the only ones who completely know their secret, and they’re in the part of the office that Jared says can’t be seen by the room. There had been a suggestive and disconcerting smile on the man’s face after that, and Gilfoyle is pretty sure that Jared and Richard make a habit of office sex more than the one time (okay, more than one times) he and Monica have sneaked around their workspace. 

Richard is blustering a little bit.

“This is, this is, it’s so unprofessional!” he gusts out in fits and starts, beginning to stand, and then sitting again as Jared gently pushes him back down into his office chair.

“That’s rich,” Monica snorts, delicately placing one leg of the other, glaring daggers into Richard’s face.

“Well, we did tell you!”

“Through an aggressive display of masculine eroticism in a nightclub,” Gilfoyle adds.

Richard just looks at him petulantly.

“Have you been using these trips to fuck in hotel rooms?’

“Yeah,” Gilfoyle says, his tone even. He’s trying to come across as bored, but he’s ready to slap or punch his really shitty friend and CEO right now. 

“So, the trips were just a way to sneak behind my back and the company’s back?” he continues. “Did you even do any work? Did you forget Becky told you something and that’s why Alex was a surprise, because of your aggressive love lives?”

“Why the hell are you so mad?” Monica spits out. She’s furious. Gilfoyle would say something to help, but he knows that he’s just going to get in the way of a spectacular show. “Are you trying to convince us of wrongdoing when we’ve brought forward our relationship after a frank, adult discussion? While you have sex with a fellow employee in a similar circumstance?”

“You’re not going to distract me,” says Richard, “because of your lies. Jared and I have been open—”

“Not verbally,” Monica cuts in. “And yes, Gilfoyle and I fucked in those hotel rooms, but that’s because we’ve been dating for the past few weeks, and that’s what you do with your partner when you go on trips. It’s not like we fucked on the panel table!”

Jared is trying to cut in and is muttering about how much he loves each of them, but he’s starting to cut himself off, because he’s noticing the futility of his words. 

“At least you would have been honest!”

“What has your panties in a knot, Richard?” Gilfoyle asks. “Is it that we didn’t tell you, or that you’re not the only one with a secret relationship? Or, could it be that your boyfriend figured it out well before you because you’re absolute garbage at reading social cues?”

Richard has nothing to answer. Jared looks at them with a wet and weak smile. 

“Thank you both,” he says, full of apology, “I appreciate you two lovebirds signing your name to the work document. We’ll discuss it more later. You are now free to express affection emotionally within the office. Thank you both for your candor.”

Richard has gone over to the window and is staring out of it like no one is allowed to look at him. So fucking dramatic. 

Monica storms out of the office and Gilfoyle lopes after her. He’s getting unhealthily aroused by each time she displays any kind of power. That’s worth a conversation tonight.


	28. Phones

Monica tells Gilfoyle that she’s going to have a night to herself and that they’ll do something tomorrow night. He looks a little hurt for a couple of seconds, but he says that it’s good. He adds something about finally catching up on some of his video games and getting to sleep, but she can tell that he’s disappointed. 

She still decides to brush it off and get her expense reports from the Seattle trip all figured out and get ready to leave a little early. Technically, staff doesn’t need to come in the day after getting back from a business trip, but Monica had called Richard the night before saying that they needed to meet urgently in person. 

Gilfoyle was pretty pissed about coming in for the day, but Monica had a lot to get off of her chest and is still angry with Becky, even after Richard made a decision. She’s glad that a woman in tech isn’t being fired, but she’s also furious that she has to work with such a snake. At least she and Gilfoyle will be in New York mostly alone. Dinesh can’t want to hang out with them. Right?

She’ll ponder that mess later. Now, her reports are all done, and her life is in some semblance of balance, so she’s going to go take a goddamn nap. Or masturbate. Or one then the other. She loves Gilfoyle, but she’s a little too on edge for it all right now, especially since she wants to have a true conversation with him, and she knows that there’s too much heat between both of them right now. Something about Seattle has blown up their sex in a very exhausting way. And she’s now exhausted and put off by him. 

She waves to Gilfoyle as she heads to the elevator, and he raises his eyebrows at her. His hair is up in a scrappy bun and she nearly runs out of the office before she asks him over. He looks worried and hot and it’s weird that she finds his deference to her so unsettling.

On the drive back to her house, she feels like her skin is on fire. She gets home and takes a long, cool shower, but her entire body is feverishly warm, so she gets into her bed with her vibrator. She hasn’t used it quite as much without Gilfoyle, but it’s hitting the spot in an aggressive and almost painful way. She passes out from the effort and the hard orgasm and doesn’t wake up until her phone is ringing.

***

“Hello?”

Monica’s voice is groggy, which is weird for eight at night. 

“Just wanted to see if you were okay,” he answers, “because you ran out of the office today.”

“I’m alright,” she says and there’s a deep tone to her voice that is really, really getting his blood flowing. “Just needed a shower and a nap.”

“That makes sense,” he says, “I just wanted to be sure you were, I don’t know, alive.”

“I’m alive,” she says, her throaty chuckle resounding into his ear. “I miss you.”

“I could go over there,” he says. 

“No,” she says, “that’ll take too long.”

He hears a faint buzzing over the line. Is she…? She’s breathing hard, but not saying anything.

Oh, fuck. 

Lucky for him, he’s already in his room, so he can slip a hand into his boxers, stroking himself.

“Too long?” he says, feigning innocence. “It’s only ten minutes.”

“That’s too long, Gilfoyle,” she snaps. “I can’t wait for that.”

He’s instantly, painfully hard. She’s ordering him around and he groans lightly into the phone.

“Take your pants off,” she orders. “Now.”

He nearly comes right on the spot, before he can hike down his pants and boxers. She makes him describe what he’s doing, stroking up and down his cock, and she makes him stop at one point while she comes, and he forces himself to stop when he hears her moan – her scream – spill into his ear.

“Your turn,” she says, hoarse, and Gilfoyle makes a huge fucking mess.

“Meet me in an hour, my place,” she says. “I still miss you.”

The phone clicks off as she hangs up on him. 

***

Monica paces around her apartment in one of her robes, just thinking about their aggressive and amazing phone sex. If Gilfoyle’s voice was anything to go off of, they’re into a little bit of powerplay. She likes being in control, but they need to discuss their boundaries and if this will happen again. She sure as fuck wants it to happen again and again, and maybe even tonight. 

It’s only been twenty minutes, so she goes out onto her balcony after securing her robe sash and lights a cigarette. She’s facing the parking lot while smoking and sees a shitty Volvo pull in after only half of her cigarette is gone. It’s less than forty minutes since she deliberately hung up on Gilfoyle, but he’s already here. 

She smiles. She feels a little power drunk. She watches Gilfoyle walk quickly up the path to the building, another hurried bun atop his head, and she hopes he looks up. He does, and stops in his tracks. It’s a little dark out, but not pitch black.

He’s staring right at her, though she’s five floors up, and can make really direct eye contact that she almost physically feels. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s a little stuck. So she lets the robe sash drop.

She’s wearing underwear, but barely.

Gilfoyle gets moving after that. If you didn’t know him too well, you wouldn’t think he was at all drawn bothered, but she knows she’s summoned him.


	29. Knees

Gilfoyle stares at her, a cigarette in hand, wearing a flimsy silk robe that he’s seen her in a few times. He nearly loses his vision for a second: she’s undoing the sash and he can see – is she naked? In public?

He hurries after the sight of a thigh and her pale stomach edging out from behind the blue fabric. He decides hastily to go up the stairs, because if he goes up the elevator and it stalls, he’s going to come in his pants. That’s really creepy in someone else’s apartment building. He hasn’t felt this turned on since the trip, but this is a new level of everything. Why does she have to live so many stories high? He’s almost running up the stairs. 

He reaches her door, but instead of being open like it usually is, it’s locked. He grasps it and shakes it a couple of times, but still has most of his presence of mind to not try to rip it off of the hinges. He needs to get to her. He needs Monica right now. 

The door opens very slowly. He can’t see anything, there’s only some overhead light, and when he steps in she just points to the couch and makes a demand.

“Sit.”

He walks as steadily as he can manage to the couch. Every vein, artery, and capillary is flowing at maximum speed, at a rate that he would venture is going to result in a pair of bloodshot eyes at the least. 

She walks over, slowly disrobing and letting it flutter to the ground. She’s still holding a cigarette in her hand, and she takes a long drag before ordering:

“Eyes down.”

He immediately drops his head and stares at the carpet underneath his feet. He does it to please her, but he’s also excited that he can’t see her. He also knows that he’ll be reprimanded if he does anything that she doesn’t say and he doesn’t want to play around with that, not quite yet. This is so new, and so strange, and he thinks that it’s perfect. 

She’s standing in front of him, one leg propped on the couch next to him. She leans over to him, and whispers:

“Are you okay? Is this alright? I don’t want to push you too far or do anything uncomfortable. I’m just checking that this is what you want.”

Her tone is delicate, kind, and he raises his head, looks her right in her eyes, and whispers back:

“Yes, this is what I want. If you stop, I think I’ll explode.”

To show that he means it, he drops his head down again, and she lightly runs her palm down his cheek, and kisses his forehead. 

She follows this by getting into character. There’s no other way to fully describe it. With a deep laugh that he feels rather than hears, she moves her legs, drops her underwear, and lightly pulls his head towards her.

He drops to his knees in front of her, feeling a tight humiliation and ardor start to pull at him, causing his breathing to quicken. 

“Lick.”

He graciously leans forward and feasts on her. He feels her hand steadily on the back of his head as he nips, sucks, and licks at her folds and her clit. 

“More.”

The commands are not only working as commands, but he’s pretty sure that he’s about to come. She grips his hair a little harder, tugging at his scrappy bun, and as she groans her release, he comes into his pants.

***

They’re sitting on the couch, cuddled into each other, as Monica rubs Gilfoyle’s back. They’ve had the beginning of the weirdest and warmest conversation of their entire relationship to this point.

“Have you ever been a… recipient like that before?” Monica asks.

“No,” he says, “not once. I think I was missing out.”

“I loved being in control, but I’m glad I checked with you. It was working so well for me, but I didn’t know if I was freaking you out or whatever.”

Gilfoyle is feeling extraordinarily lucky that he’s started to leave clothes at Monica’s, because he would have been up shit creek. She’d been prepared to return his delicious favor, when he’d frankly explained that that wouldn’t be necessary for a while. So, they’d opened the floor for discussing their sex lives before each other. 

Turns out, Gilfoyle is pretty vanilla, and Monica has a lot of prowess and is willing to go for mild kinkiness. They’re both interested in seeing where this all will take them. 

They also discuss this newfound control and anger play that they’re both enjoying. 

“I hated being aroused in a meeting with Richard and Jared,” he tells her, “while you were yelling at them. There’s nothing more unsettling than thinking about sex and watching Richard speak at the same time. It’s the ultimate cognitive dissonance.”

Monica starts laughing lightly at that. 

“I can see that,” she agrees. “I was genuinely upset. “I like taking control.”

“Agreed,” Gilfoyle says, a shy smile darting out from behind his hair. He’s taken down his hair and looks really untamed and sexy. 

“Have you eaten yet?” she asks.

“Yes,” he smirks.

“I walked right the fuck into that one,” she says and rolls her eyes, “I’m ordering real food now.”


	30. Condo

The fact of the matter is that Gilfoyle is absolutely smitten with Monica. It’s starting to interfere with his work. He has known for a while how incredibly amazing she is, but it’s not until they start really exploring their power dynamic and Gilfoyle leans into the humiliation that they start to see each other in a raw way that keeps him up at night on the rare night that they’re not together. When they’re together, of course he’s up all hours of the night and it’s exhausting in the most delicious way.

The pair of them have had to draw a hard line between their work and their sex life. They haven’t found any reason to tell the rest of the office about their relationship, and Becky has been avoiding them except for when they need to meet about certain work assignments. He notices that she lingers a little bit after different meetings, like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t want to shove her foot further down her throat.

Monica, normally warm to everyone, has given Becky a complete cold shoulder. It’s very unsettling to see Monica this irritated with someone, but it’s not his primary issue right now.

Right now, she’s wearing a white sleeveless blouse and a navy form-fitting skirt that’s short enough for the summer. She’s stretching and arching her back, pushing her breasts forward and letting a little yawn release. He’s not sure if she’s teasing him or not, but whatever is happening, it’s working far too well. It’s almost the end of the day and they’re going to have a night out.

They’re just going to dinner, but she told him this morning (via text, no less) to wear something “nice” since the place is fancier than what they’re used to. He’s starting to feel nervous, because he’s not sure what the fuck that means, or if he has anything that will line up with that. When he’d asked, she said that he just needed to wear a jacket. He has something, but he thinks it looks a little bit too professorial. It has fucking elbow pads. 

He may have wanted to get his doctorate at some point in his undergraduate degree. But fuck academics.

He’s now watching her leave for the day with a little wave and nothing else. He’s also on edge because Monica has suggested sleeping separately for three nights running. There’s something about the anticipation of what tonight might become that’s really starting to agitate him. 

He drives home clenching the steering wheel and takes a long ass shower when he gets home. He finds a pair of clean jeans, a button-up shirt, and the weird jacket. He gets a text; she’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.

*** 

Monica is terrified about tonight. She and Gilfoyle have been together for only four months, but she’s planning on asking him to move in. She used to enjoy taking her nights away from her previous boyfriends, but she really missed Gilfoyle two nights earlier, when they decided to take a night off after waking up twice to have sex the night earlier. Work had been a slog that day, but she really missed waking up to Gilfoyle.

It’s not just the sex. The animal energy, heavy eroticism, and sweet aftermath of their very, very compatible sex. It’s also the fact that they watch shitty TV together, like a good beer when they get home on certain days and have actually sat a room together for more than a couple of hours in comfortable silence. Not just comfortable, but pleasant. 

And last night she’d used her vibrator and instead of watching anything to start her off, she’d just thought of her boyfriend. It’s a little unsettling, but he’s still living at the fucking hacker hostel, and she’s never going to have sex with him there. The likelihood of Dinesh walking in on them is just disturbing enough to make it impossible.

So, she’s going to jump in with both feet and ask him. And she’s going to make it as appealing as possible by wearing her tiniest cocktail dress. Well, it’s also for her. There’s nothing better than a tiny dress and a night out. It doesn’t hurt that she’s also not afraid to ‘accidentally’ tread on a man’s instep with her stilettos. 

She sends a quick text, shrugs on a light peacoat, and heads over to Gilfoyle.

He’s waiting for her in the front of the house, outside, and actually looks nervous. He’s done his hair up into a very meticulous bun, and he’s wearing – is that tweed? With elbow patches?

The fact that he’s put in this much effort pulls up the corners of her lips in a broad smile.

*** 

Monica is deliberately not playing fair. At all. She’s wearing the smallest red dress that cuts only halfway down her thighs. The bodice is tight and its low cut. When she shrugged out of her coat at the restaurant, he knows he’d stared, and he knows that she wore this on purpose. 

Now they’re sitting across from one another, each drinking some of the best fucking beer he’s ever had. The room is dark, but he can clearly see his amazing girlfriend.

“Okay,” she says, “I’m going to rip off this band aid.”

He feels his stomach drop out of his ass.

“I want to ask you something.”

“Then ask it,” he bites out, scared.

“I don’t know how to ask it without it being weird,” she says, “so, here goes. How would you like to move into my condo?”

He honestly doesn’t know how to answer her. Is she actually asking him this? Is he having a hallucination?

“Gilfoyle, you okay?” she asks nervously.

“I don’t know,” he says. “because you’ve asked me something pretty fucking huge.”

“I know,” she says, “but I mean it. Hear me out: we’ve been together almost every day for the past four months, not counting the days we’re at work. We’ve traveled together and enjoyed ourselves. We always spend time doing anything together at our apartment. I know for a fact that you can get work done even if we stay up most of the night, and the last three days have been boring and weird without you.”

“So you’ve decided to ask me to stay in your apartment full time?”

“Not just stay,” she says with a gentle laugh, “but live with me. We can get a different condo down the line if we need, but you have the hostel to go back to if it doesn’t work out. But I think it’s going to work out for both of us, I have a very strong gut feeling.”

The weirdest part of it all is that he actually agrees with all of her points. None of them have touched on their sex life. Shit, is this what successful monogamy feels like? Does he like that?

“You don’t have to answer right—”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, let’s try it.

They leave the conversation for when they get back to her place, and just enjoy their very delicious and overpriced dinner.


	31. Cake

They drive back in a mostly comfortable silence to Monica’s condo. Which is going to be his condo however soon they decide that’s going to be. That fact feels so foreign and simultaneously comforting. He’s only ever lived by himself or with roommates, never with a partner. He’s also never been in a monogamous relationship, even though Tara was pretty much that. He has never felt the need for sex outside whoever was right there with him. 

Still, it is very, very soon. Four months is honestly no time at all. He does have the room at the hacker hostel that he’s sure will always be open, and he’s making a really good salary now that he’s risen in the ranks of Pied Piper and has still found time to work on his own apps and tech. He really hopes it doesn’t explode in their faces, but he’ll get through it all.

They pull into the parking garage and he takes her hand without even thinking about it until she turns to him and smiles. It’s not anything new, but it feels very couple-y. 

It’s only 9:30, so Monica pours them some whiskey and grabs some leftover cake from the fridge. They frequently have those garishly colorful sheet cakes at the office (courtesy of one Jared Dunn), but this one was particularly good.

They settle onto the breakfast bar corner, facing each other around the ninety-degree angle. 

“You’re really okay with moving in?”

“It makes sense,” says Gilfoyle, “and it’s nicer than the hostel.”

“The bar is incredibly low on that comparison,” she snorts, “but I’m happy you seem genuinely interested.”

“Aren’t you afraid that I’m going to get annoying?”

“You haven’t been so far, and I get lonely when you’re not here.”

“You’re obsessed with me,” he says.

***

Monica knows that he’s joking, but this is the first time she’s worried that she’s codependent. 

She makes a quick list in her head:  
1\. She sleeps better when he’s there.  
2\. She has had to make rules for their work lives  
3\. She has actually written out said rules

“Monica?”

Gilfoyle is looking at her, possibly in a concerned way, but he looks angry.

“Are you rethinking all of this?”

“No, not at all.”

“You look like you’re going to cry.”

“I’m not, I promise. Am I codependent?”

“I have no idea what those words truly mean.”

“Do you think I rely on you to feel secure?”

He just looks confused at all of that. He grips his glass almost too hard, his knuckles going a little white.

“Gilfoyle?” her voice comes out in an embarrassing squeak.

“You don’t get it.”

His voice is deep, sexy, and unnerving. 

“What?”

“You don’t get it, Monica,” he says, “you’re so much better than I am. At fucking everything. I’ve just followed your lead because you’re kind to everyone and you’re smarter than everyone else at Pied Piper and you’re sexy and you’re more important to me than anyone else.”

Whoa. She knew he cared about her, but this is a lot of emotion from one guy.

“Maybe we spend a lot of time together and it’s a lot, but I think we just like each other,” he continues, the words coming out in a stream of consciousness. “If you want me to move in to keep having sex and eating and talking, that’s all I could possibly want. If you want me to move in just because you want to sleep better, then I won’t.”

She feels a tear come down her cheek.

“I know that’s not the reason you want me here. I know the reason you want me here is the same reason I want to be here. Because I like you.”

She’s fully sobbing now, and she reaches out to grab his hand. He grips it really hard, squeezing and looking at her.

“Are you fucking okay?”

She lets out a crazed laugh, loud enough that she practically startles herself.

“I’m fucking great,” she says, and leans over to kiss his cheek. “I can’t wait for you to live with me.”

They hug for a little while, before splitting and turning back to their cake.

“When do you want me to move in?”

***   
He made her cry, but he’s pretty sure it’s not a bad thing since she keeps smiling at him. It’s like she’s crying tears of relief. He’s a little scared of how aggressive he got, but he really wants her to know that she’s not codependent. He knows that she’s not forcing him into her condo.

They start talking about costs and mortgage and all of that crap. He brings it up, because he knows she will be too nice. He wants to split it fifty-fifty, so he doesn’t feel like he’s taking advantage. They decide for him to move in with her at the beginning of next month, giving them a little over a week for Monica to make some arrangements for him and for him to let the guys know. It honestly frees up Jian-Yang’s room so he can attract a new start-up guy. 

The pair of them end up talking about their past living situations, and Monica brings up her former husband and his tendency to collect whistles. 

“He’s in his thirties, but he acts like he’s closer to eighty.”

This is the most he’s heard about this mysterious husband, and she switches the topic to how she enjoys reading and collecting books, and the spare room is a bit of a mess of stacks. He’s never been in there. Her sharp topic change probably means that he’s not going to hear anything else about the ex, and he doesn’t want to push her any further.

She ends up getting more cake out of the fridge and it’s not even midnight when they finish their cake, but they both keep yawning, so they go to bed. He doesn’t fall asleep right away, but just listens to Monica breathing.


	32. Care

Living together has become really easy and Monica is really pleased that they chose to do it. They’re two months into living together, and their only uncomfortable steps along the way are set in place by work folks.

Monica convinces Gilfoyle to drive to work together, even though it means they spend a lot of time together, especially since they’re peeling off onto different projects that Richard himself designed. The pettiness of Richard Hendricks drives him to a wildly differentiated work schedule, as much as he can, between Monica and Gilfoyle. The pair still have six travel stops for the rest of the month, and he’s livid that it’s happening.

Monica has scheduled a meeting for this morning and is prepared verbally to rain bullets down her boss, a person she also thought was her friend.

“You’re going to have to get used to my relationship, Richard,” she begins, “because Gilfoyle and I are living together.”

Richard bobs his head around and starts reaching into the air and at his desk for purchase. His eyes are wide, and he looks a little crazed. He refuses to make any eye contact.

“We didn’t go by the book right away,” she continues, irritated that Richard is Richard-ing so hard, “but we are now, and this is a courtesy to make sure that you’re supportive and so there’s no way to undermine either me or Gilfoyle.”

“Why do you not trust me, Monica?” Richard says before glaring at her.

“I trust you, Richard,” she says, “it’s just awkward to wade through the whole office romance pool.”

“It’s really not,” he bites back, “it just feels personal.”

“Yeah, because you’re so open with Jared.”

“I am,” he says, “we told you when—”

“Told us?” she says, her voice deep with anger, “More like made out in front of us in a display better suited to a high schooler.”

“Should I have had a weird meeting about it instead, Monica?” he says her name with egregious amounts of sarcasm. She feels her eyes roll without her permission.

“That’s not really the problem in the end, Richard,” she says, spitting out his name with the utmost derision. “You’re just being a huge baby about this.”

“Fuck you, Monica.”

“Fuck you!”

They sit and stare at one another, fury coating the room in a heavy fog. All cards are on the table and it’s Richard’s turn to draw.

“It just hurts that you didn’t tell me for weeks,” he says quietly, “I’ve known you for years. While I didn’t tell you about Jared for a while, I was still grappling with my sexuality. I didn’t know how to tell you anything, or any of the guys, without just… letting it happen.”

“Richard, are you afraid?” Monica does feel concerned for him now. She loves Richard, as much of a man child genius bitch he can be. They’ve been friends practically from the time she’d pounced on him outside the urgent care when he was still mulling over his choice between Hooli and Raviga.

“Yes,” he says, “because I really care about Jared and I think it’s a new step in my life, but the only people who know are you guys.”

Monica realizes that she knows absolutely nothing about Richard’s family. She barely knows about Dinesh or even Gilfoyle’s family, and she only knows about Jared’s life because he’s a little too forthright on a daily basis.

“I’m sure it’s a lot of emotion to be around Jared all the time, too,” she says, “but you really haven’t told your parents?”

“Not yet,” he says. “I feel like I’m going to barf whenever I get close to calling them.”

Like that’s anything different from his usual daily worries. The man’s nervous stomach is practically its own employee in Pied Piper, it makes enough appearances.

“Are you worried that they’d reject you or Jared?”

Richard shakes his head, still eyeing his wastepaper basket. It’s made of reinforced plastic and always triple or quadruple bagged. 

“Well, I think it might help if you just tell them,” she says gently. “I can help you if you need me, too. Mull it over.”

“I’m sorry, Monica,” he breathes, leaning back in his chair, arms locked by his sides. He’s staring at the ceiling. “I really fucked with you.”

“Yeah, you did,” she says, “but that’s okay. Shit happens. Just wanted to clear the air.”

“Can we—” he starts and sputters out, “can we get coffee this weekend? Just the two of us?”

“Of course!”

*** 

“I had no idea how out of the loop he is from his family,” Monica tells him as they’re getting ready for bed.

It’s bizarre, but they go to bed before midnight almost every night. What’s weirder is that he’s starting to get used to it and even enjoy it. On weekends, he’ll still push the 3am boundary, but he likes having a normal sleep schedule. He’s even started to get to the office before 9 and will leave around 3 some afternoons. He’s getting somewhere with some new algorithms he’s playing with for a couple of app ideas, but he’s not going to strike until he’s ready.

“When have we known Dick to be in the loop with anything except computer science?” Gilfoyle retorts. “Richard is great, but y’know.”

“I know, but he’s a friend. And a genius. And weirdly enough, our fucking boss,” she says, “and despite the pettiness, I respect the guy. We’re getting coffee this weekend.”

“Sounds dull, have fun.”

Monica giggles at that, a sweet and innocent little giggle that is so different from her usual deep tones that he hears when they’re in bed. He really likes her. Does he tell her he loves her? Is that just a socially proscribed bullshit rule? He’s pretty sure that she knows that, but he’s not sure. So—

“I love you,” he says quickly.

She stops giggling and raises her eyebrows at him.

“Wait, what?”

“I love you.”

Monica gently wraps her arms around him, and he’s disturbed to find her softly crying in his ear.

“Did I fuck this up?”

Monica is giggling again through the tears (and the snot, wow this is endearing and gross) and grabs a tissue before reaching back to hug him again.

“I love you, too,” she says in a strangled, happy tone, and he wraps his arms around her, too.

The pair of them stay like that for a while and have a hard time falling asleep that night.


	33. Folder

Becky is standing in front of him, standing in a posture that he’s sure that she’s practiced on purpose, because she keeps clenching her hands and taking deep breaths.

“Gilf, I’d like to offer you a lunch to clear the air,” she begins, “and to make a formal business partnership with Alex.”

He just stares at her. The gall of this fucking person.

“I’m asking you first, mostly because I feel like it’s time for me to demonstrate how you can trust me. I fucked you and Monica over when we were in Seattle. Well, not fucked you over, but I definitely put you in an uncomfortable situation, and launched Alex at you. That wasn’t fair, and I’m apologizing for that. I’m planning a meeting in the next couple of weeks, because Alex is in the process of moving, but that won’t be until the end of the month, and I wanted to ask you if you’d be at all willing before bringing it to Richard.”

Gilfoyle is now sure that this stream of words is practiced. They’re pretty well thought out, she took the time to demonstrate how much she wants to actually go forward.

He’s still going to make her sweat it. He’s sure there’s a second speech.

“I also have a plan in place for discussing this all with Monica,” she continues, and he can see a trickle of sweat going down the side of her face. “I think that both of you should be at the front of whatever VR project we undergo, I just want to be the conduit to begin it all so we can start somewhere.”

He’s pretty sure there’s more speech, but this is way too much. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” she asks, the relief and a tinge of excitement bursting over her face. “Okay!”

“You can go talk to Monica.”

She walks off to Monica, and notices that she takes a little manila envelope to her. She just wanted his permission, but she is armed with something more substantial. He can’t wait to hear about how it goes later.

They have three weeks until they head to New York, and it’s going to be the biggest event yet. Monica’s also planned in some goddamn sightseeing and has invited Dinesh along. He heard something about a Village bar crawl and he’s a little intimidated by the idea.

Now, Monica, who’s putting in tons of effort and planning into the whole trip, is now about to be faced by a woman with a brand new plan. That needs to be undertaken as soon as possible.

*** 

“She walked into my fucking office with a goddamn business plan,” Monica is yelling, holding a gigantic kitchen knife and slicing vegetables, “and mentioned something about a new demo. She tried steamrolling me.”

Monica is coated in pure irritation and Gilfoyle finds it both intimidating and hot. 

“Yeah, she just talked to me.”

“Wait,” Monica says, gesturing with the huge cleaver, “she talked to you.”

“Yeah, she came to me first thing this morning.”

“Hold the fuck up, she talked to you first? Not to mention separately?”

“I guess so,” he answers limply.

“Fucking Becky!”

Gilfoyle is amazed with how attracted he is to this woman, especially when she’s holding a gigantic weapon and waving it around slightly. He’s not worried that anything will happen. Well, not accidentally in any case. 

“Do we have a plan for when it’s happening?” he asks, the hesitation rendering his voice quiet. “Since she went in with a whole folder and shit?”

“Yep,” she says, punching the ‘p’ in ‘yep’ hard. “Three days before we fucking fly out to New York. Because of Alex’s schedule. We both went into Richard’s office afterwards, which was a whole situation, too. Richard actually liked Becky’s whole plan and has more or less forgiven her. She’s still not traveling with us, thank God.”

“Still stuck with Dinesh?”

Monica smiles, but holding the knife, it’s just terrifying. 

“Hell, yeah, Dinesh is coming with us!” she punches the air with the knife.

“Please put down the weapon,” Gilfoyle says, holding his hands up. “I’m now worried for your ceiling. Our ceiling.”

She smiles at that and makes a show of delicately setting the knife onto the counter. 

*** 

Monica loves that Gilfoyle now lives with her. They don’t try too hard to split their work life from their home life, but they don’t find they need to, either. Gilfoyle hates cleaning, but he does a lot of the cooking, but Monica enjoys doing it, too. He’s a tidy person overall, but he doesn’t do small tasks. They’ll get there.

“The weapon has been placed away from both of us.” 

Their evening routine is usually get home, Gilfoyle makes dinner while Monica reads or cleans, and then the pair of them settle into some sitcom marathon while Gilfoyle works on something. He’s mentioned a couple of app ideas and what they are from the backend, but he’s assured her that he’s nowhere near product status. He’s not leaving Pied Piper anytime soon.

They also have been playing with their usual sex, but not every night. Usually, Monica finds herself feeling so energized that they don’t get to sleep at a normal time. She’s had to cut off their mistress and servant play for the weekends, because they sometimes have two hours of foreplay. Delayed gratification is one hell of a drug. 

Gilfoyle didn’t have any furniture to move in, but his clothes are now in her drawers – their drawers, she mentally corrects herself – and the spare bedroom is covered in bits and pieces of tech. He put up a metal shelf to keep all of the pieces in order, and the room has become her favorite. She can watch him put together pieces of tech that make no sense to her. The only thing that makes sense is her new boyfriend’s profound love for the tech and the way it all fits together.

Now, they settle into dinner and enjoy a rare dish prepared by her, laughing and talking about how they’re going to prank the hell out of Dinesh on their New York trip. Gilfoyle has yet to know that she and Dinesh are planning pranks on him, too. 

She can’t wait for New York.


	34. City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long random hiatus there! I'm back with some stuff, and I'm going to finish it at some point. I hope everyone's doing well during the nightmare/fever dream that is 2020. <3

Monica can’t believe they’re finally on the goddamn plane. After a solid two days of meetings with Alex Fisher about his VR tech (which is shockingly not just for game play and smartphone purposes), she is sitting next to Gilfoyle and across the aisle from Gilfoyle is an ecstatic and chatty Dinesh.

“I’m so ready for a fucking drink!” he says, beaming. “I want to cut off Alex Fisher’s balls!”

Almost every sentence and interaction with Dinesh in the past few hours have involved doing something to Alex. Dinesh disliked the man almost immediately but was also drawn to the way that his tech could feasibly revolutionize medical fields. As it turns out, the man is well versed in the medical field. Alex Fisher had been a PA in a previous life and worked at many a hospital in his time. This somehow solidified everyone’s hatred for him, especially Richard. He kept muttering about stupid doctors in the Valley and their garbage tech ideas but was also swayed by the brilliance of the Fisher brand.

They were going to be able to provide imaging for their users and ways of communicating between doctors and their staff in a brand-new way, and it would all be supported well on Richard’s new internet. Their initial tests had gone well, but they had wanted their legal team to come with them.

The weirdest part was how Richard felt it necessary to promote Becky. Though her methods were shitty, it was becoming more and more apparent that none of them had a leg to stand on with their very sketchy and nonchalant approach to the law in the past. It was just that Alex’s false cheeriness and condescension had poisoned the well where Becky was concerned. She didn’t deserve that. Monica and Gilfoyle discovered that she was going to be going with them in three months to Berlin, as well as with Dinesh. 

That will be a future Monica problem.

They are now situated in the first-class pods, each outfitted with a blanket over their knees and a glass of whiskey in their hands.

Dinesh makes a toast, “to not having to be around that shit stain, Alex!” and they clink their glasses. Their glasses clinked and they threw back a lot of alcohol for ten in the morning. Next time, Monica is going to make it so the order something like a Bloody Mary or mimosa. Something that wouldn’t draw the eyebrow raising of everyone around them.

“I haven’t been to New York before,” Gilfoyle says suddenly.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Dinesh blurts, loud enough to draw the glare of a woman in her mid-fifties, peeking over her reading glasses. She looks like a Nancy or a Karen, Monica thought to herself.

“Never saw the appeal,” Gilfoyle answers quietly.

“It’s goddamn New York,” Dinesh stage whispers. “The capital of the world? There are buildings and angry people and shit!”

“Things you can find in any large city,” Gilfoyle smirks.

“I’m surprised, Gilf,” Monica says, peering over her glass. “It’s touristy, sure, but there are a lot of fun places to go and a lot of pizza.”

“Sounds similar to California,” he says, shrugging. “I grew up near Toronto, and it was overhyped.”

“That’s because you grew up in Canada,” Dinesh says, his eyes closing as he is purposefully breathing through the very obvious frustration he’s feeling. “New York is actually interesting.”

“Okay,” Gilfoyle shrugs, and then leans back in his seat.

Dinesh spends the remainder of the flight doing some coding on his computer while periodically glaring at his sleeping best friend. Gilfoyle’s head slowly droops until he’s nestled into the crook between Monica’s shoulder and neck. Her presence is almost unnecessary on this trip, so she’s flying through a novel.

The next thing she knows, they’ve landed, and she and Gilfoyle are in a cuddle pile and Dinesh is not-so-quietly telling them to wake up so they can get dinner.

“I’m hungry as fuck, guys.”

After a long wait in an industrial baggage claim for a very nice town car, a drive past a gorgeous skyline view at night, they are in lower Manhattan on Union Square, in three adjoining rooms. They meet in the lounge of the W, where they hop into a cab which takes them to a place on the water that Richard set them up. They do have to meet with a client from Alex’s company, but fortunately, the food is supposed to be excellent.


	35. Promotion

“I’ve never hated a person more while enjoying a full plate of pasta at the same time,” says Dinesh after their dinner. Alex’s client was essentially Alex but even dryer and with less charisma or knowledge of technology. 

The three of them were now walking down a foggy and misty side street in the Village. Dinesh was talking a mile a minute, bringing up ideas of what they could do next, and how the three of them needed to get a drink and stay out late. They didn’t have any meetings or panels until 3 the next day, but Gilfoyle knew that he needed a little bit of time to himself without being hungover. 

However, the very brief, if unsubtle, brushes of Monica’s arm and hand (and at one point, breast) against him have him very alert and hard to concentrate on Dinesh’s wild plans.

He does have to admit, dry fake Alex (pretty sure his name was Chad or Hunter, for fuck’s sake), he so far likes New York. It’s dingy, cool, and he’s seen more people snap at each other in three hours on the street than in four years in California. There’s something to be said about the aggressive honesty and blatant middle fingers that New York City produces. Maybe he does get the hype, just not in the way that a ton of other people do.

“We’re going here,” Dinesh says, pointing to a hole in the wall, “and we’re having shots.”

Monica grabs Gilfoyle’s hand, and they follow Dinesh into the bar. It reeks of beer in a familiar, damp way. Gilfoyle actually feels at home here. There are even some hipster douches that don’t look totally off-putting. There’s also some weird slam-dancing happening in the back of the bar. 

Dinesh has already gotten to the bar and a very attractive man behind the bar (what is in the goddamn city water? There are so many beautiful people in this place) is passing over three beer bottles and three larger shot glasses. 

Well, they’re going to be here for a while. 

They manage to find a table in the back, and it turns out that Monica was in on the whole plan. They’re raising their glasses to him. He can actually hear them because there’s a half wall between them and the weird hipster dancing.

“We have news for you,” Monica says. 

“You should see your face right now,” Dinesh says, with the most unappealing and devious smile on his face.

“What the fuck?” Gilfoyle is legitimately concerned about what’s going to happen next. Both Monica and Dinesh are smiling and toasting him.

“You’re getting a promotion,” Monica says, “and you’re the head of nationwide operations.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and I’m getting the CTO position,” Dinesh says, smugly, “for California-based projects.”

Whoa. This is not what he envisioned for his life. His whole adult life has been to spite any form of leadership, and now he’s the head of travel? What kind of corporate bullshit is this? The other part of him, the more tamed and domestic parts of him that have emerged with Monica, are legitimately excited for the way this could carve out some cool future. Maybe he can buy a house?

He worldlessly clinks his glass and sloshes back what turns out to be rye whiskey, which burns (such a necessary burn) down the back of his throat.

“You don’t have to make any decisions, yet,” Monica says, her hand floating to the top of his, “but the seat is available for you. There’s a substantial raise, your own schedule, and you’re essentially at Richard’s level.”

This shifts things.

“Why now?” he asks. “What else is happening?”

“Honestly, nothing,” Dinesh says. “We’re just fucking killing it.” 

Dinesh slings back his extra-large shot and takes a slug at his beer.

“It’s a lot,” Monica says, “but it’s a good choice. Let’s dance.”

And like that, she yanks him out of the chair and towards the dance floor, Dinesh following closely behind.


End file.
